‘CRACK YOUR SKULL’

NY Man Pleads Guilty After Making Threatening Phone Calls to MTG

Joseph Morelli, who identified himself in at least one voicemail, left seven threatening messages, saying in one, “I really think I’m gonna have to cause you harm.”

A northern New York man pleaded guilty Wednesday to leaving a number of menacing voicemails for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), including one in which he promised to show her “what violence truly is,” authorities said. Joseph Morelli, 51, faces up to five years in prison nearly a year after he was indicted last April on charges of transmitting interstate threatening communications. Morelli left seven threatening voicemails at Greene’s office in Washington, D.C., plainly identifying himself in at least one, according to court filings. In one message, Morelli said, “I think I’m gonna have to show you, to your face, right up front, what violence truly is and I don’t think you’re gonna like it,” according to an FBI agent’s affidavit. The affidavit recounts how Morelli threatened to “pay someone 500 bucks to take a baseball bat and crack your skull.” In another voicemail, Morelli said, “I really think I’m gonna have to cause you harm—physical harm. I’m gonna have to take your life into my own hands.” Greene, for her part, decried the rhetoric and tried to make a tenuous connection between Morelli’s treatment and that of the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. “A man pleads guilty for planning to kill me or paying someone to do it. Now he’s at home, able to do it while awaiting sentencing,” she wrote on Twitter. “But a guy who sat at Pelosi’s desk faces 20 years & people who walked into the Capitol on J6 are rotting in jail pretrial.”