Alaska man arrested over death threats made to supreme court justices

Panos Anastasiou, 76, has been indicted on federal charges for allegedly sending more than 465 messages to the supreme court through a public court website. The messages contained graphic threats of assassination and torture, along with racist and homophobic rhetoric, according to the justice department.

The indictment does not specify which justices Anastasiou targeted, but the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the man made the graphic threats as retaliation for court decisions he disagreed with.

Anastasiou was released from detention late on Thursday with a list of conditions, including not contacting, directly or indirectly, any of the six justices or their family members.

During the hearing, magistrate Kyle Reardon noted some of the messages Anastasiou allegedly sent between March 2023 and mid-July 2024, including calling for the assassination of two of the Republican-appointed justices so the current Democratic president could appoint their successors.

Anastasiou received a visit from FBI agents last year and instead of toning down his rhetoric after receiving that visit, he increased the frequency of his messages and their vitriolic language, the judge said.

Threats targeting federal judges overall have more than doubled in recent years amid a surge of similar violent messages directed at public officials around the country, the US Marshals Service previously said.

Meanwhile, a judge in a rural Kentucky county was shot dead in his courthouse chambers by the local sheriff, the police said. The sheriff has since been charged with murder.