Long Island Man Pleads Guilty to Mailing Threatening Letters to LGBTQ+ Affiliated Individuals | USAO-EDNY

Before currently, in federal courtroom in Central Islip, Robert Fehring pleaded responsible just before United States District Choose Joanna Seybert to mailing more than 20 letters threatening to assault, shoot, and bomb LGBTQ+ affiliated people, businesses and firms.  When sentenced, Fehring faces up to five years’ imprisonment. 

Breon Peace, United States Lawyer for the Japanese District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Discipline Place of work (FBI), and Rodney K. Harrison, Commissioner, Suffolk County Police Section (SCPD), announced the responsible plea.

“In pleading guilty today, the defendant admits that he despatched hate-filled communications that threatened mass shootings, bombings and other lethal assaults, to associates of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood,” mentioned United States Legal professional Peace.  “This Office will use all of its obtainable legislation enforcement equipment to shield the security and civil rights of the LGBTQ+ community and every single other neighborhood. We will not tolerate hateful threats supposed to invoke worry and division, and we will keep accountable individuals who make or act on this sort of threats.”

Mr. Peace also expressed his gratitude to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Place of work for their assistance in the investigation.   

“Today’s guilty plea further highlights Fehring’s intentions, and underscores the FBI’s determination to vigorously investigating civil rights violations. Anonymous threats towards customers of our community will inevitably be uncovered, and those people who are liable for them will be held accountable,” said FBI Assistant Director-in-Demand Driscoll.

“We have unquestionably no tolerance for dislike incidents of any form here in Suffolk County and I hope that this guilty plea presents peace of intellect to each the victims and the whole LGBTQ+ community,” said SCPD Commissioner Harrison.  “Our department remains laser targeted on holding persons who carry out functions of hate accountable and I thank all of our law enforcement partners who helped provide brief closure to this scenario.”

As set forth in the court filings and today’s continuing, from at minimum 2013 to 2021, Fehring despatched letters threatening violence to persons affiliated with the LGBTQ+ group.  In those letters, Fehring threatened to use firearms and explosives in opposition to the recipients. A single these types of letter threatened that there would “be radio-cont[r]olled devices positioned at a lot of strategic places” at the 2021 New York Metropolis Satisfaction March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” referencing the 2016 assault in which 49 folks were being killed and dozens wounded at Pulse, a homosexual nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  Fehring also despatched a threatening letter to the proprietor of a barbershop affiliated with the LGTBQ+ community in Brooklyn, New York, which said, in component, “your shop is the best spot for a bombing . . . or beating the scum that frequents your den of [expletive] into a bloody pool of steaming flesh.”  Fehring mailed dozens of extra threatening letters to men and women, firms, and elected officials related with the LGBTQ+ group.

On November 18, 2021, the FBI’s Civil Rights Squad and the New York Joint Terrorism Job Force executed a lookup warrant at Fehring’s home in Bayport and recovered copies of letters that contains threats, materials employed to mail threatening letters, 20 LGBTQ+ connected Satisfaction flags that appeared equivalent to flags stolen from flagpoles in Sayville in July 2021, and reconnaissance-type photographs from a June 2021 Pride party in East Meadow.  Law enforcement officers also recovered electronic devices owned by Fehring that contained world-wide-web queries for Fehring’s victims and associated LGBTQ+ affiliated particular person, occasions, and enterprises.  Regulation enforcement officers also recovered from Fehring’s residence two loaded shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, two stun guns, and a stamped envelope tackled to an LGBTQ+ affiliated attorney containing the stays of a dead hen.

The government’s scenario is getting dealt with by the Office’s Countrywide Protection and Cybercrime Portion, Civil Legal rights Area, and Very long Island Legal Division. Assistant United States Attorneys Francisco J. Navarro, Rachel A. Shanies, and Andrew P. Wenzel are in demand of the prosecution.

The Defendant:

ROBERT FEHRING
Age:  74
Bayport, New York

E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 22-CR-059 (JS)