A 30-year-old from Queens, New York, who allegedly spent two years harassing members of the US Congress with more than 12,000 calls pleaded guilty Thursday after making threatening comments against a staffer.
“I’m going to kill you, I’m going to crush you, I’m going to kill you with a bomb or a grenade,” Ade Salim Lilly told a US congressional staffer in October 2022, according to court documents filed with his plea. guilty Thursday and reported by NBC News.
The 35-year-old reportedly pleaded guilty this week before District Judge Timothy Kelly to making threats and making more than 12,000 harassing phone calls, including 6,526 targeting the offices of 54 members of the Congress in Washington DC, according to the American media.
These would have occurred between February 2022 and November 2023, the date of his arrest. The man reportedly became angry on several occasions, raising his voice and “using vulgar and harassing language” against interns or staff members who answered the phone.
“Members of Congress staff repeatedly asked the accused to refrain from calling,” the court documents raised, specifying that the thirty-year-old had been warned by the Capitol police that his calls “were not unwanted and that due to their harassing nature, they were prohibited by law.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police would not identify the targets of the repeated calls, but told NBC News that the calls targeted both political parties. One of the offices alone was targeted more than 500 times, according to the American media.
Ade Salim Lilly, who has remained in detention since his arrest, is expected to receive his sentence on August 28.
