Houston area man pleads guilty to threatening to bomb White House, FBI – Houston Public Media

A Houston-area man pleaded guilty this week to allegations that he sent threatening emails to the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies over the course of several years, according to the district attorney’s office the United States.

Joshua Guadalupe Magana, 37, pleaded guilty Monday to the allegations. The Baytown man admitted to sending bomb threats to the White House on multiple occasions, despite law enforcement previously warning him against making any threats.

On June 4, 2019, Magana called the FBI, threatening that he had a bomb and was planning to “blow up the White House.”

A few months earlier, Magana was arrested on a Class A misdemeanor charge of terroristic threatening after threatening to plant a bomb in the Baytown Police Department, according to court documents.

In 2021, he sent an email directly to the White House containing similar threats. The subject line of his email read “Contact the President,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to court documents, Magana’s competence was called into question during the legal proceedings. In May last year, an order claiming that Magana “is currently suffering from a mental illness or defect rendering him mentally incompetent” was filed by an attorney.

The order, which failed after a judge refused to sign it, would have ordered that Magana be committed to a federal facility to try to restore his mental capacity.

“We take all threats seriously,” U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani said in a statement. “People cannot express their political or social disagreements through threats or violence. »

Magana will be sentenced Oct. 2 and faces up to five years in federal prison. He will remain in custody until his sentencing, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.