A former GOP candidate in Florida who lost his primary for a congressional seat to Rep. Anna Paulina Luna has just been charged with threatening to kill a political rival, ostensibly Luna. The Hill reports that William Braddock ran in 2022 in the Sunshine State's 13th Congressional District against Luna, who ended up winning the seat. But according to an indictment unsealed on Thursday, Braddock, now 41, had a year earlier "made several threats to injure and kill Victim 1 and Victim 2," via a phone call, per a DOJ release. Victim 1 was reportedly Braddock's opponent in the primary race, while Victim 2 "was a private citizen and acquaintance of Victim 1."
One of the threats involved Braddock warning he would "call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad" to get rid of Victim 1, according to the DOJ. NBC News notes that in 2021 court documents, Luna claimed Braddock was stalking her and wished her dead. That same year, Luna was granted a restraining order against Braddock that applied to herself and a conservative activist friend. Braddock suspended his campaign later in 2021, and the DOJ release notes he fled to the Philippines.
Braddock has since been deported from the Philippines back to the US and has already made one court appearance in Los Angeles. He's been charged with one count of interstate transmission of a true threat to injure another person, which could bring him up to five years behind bars if convicted. A rep for Luna, 35, wouldn't comment on the case specifically, but they told NBC that Luna, now a congresswoman, has encountered "a growing number of death threats" over the last month or so, amid a "broader and more disturbing issue of violence in the political arena." Local police in Florida are working in tandem with the FBI to investigate the case. (More Florida stories.)
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