COLUMBIA, S.C. — A follower of the Proud Boys extremist group has been indicted by a federal grand jury for threatening the lives of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and two South Carolina federal judges.
Eric Rome, 33, an inmate in the S.C. Department of Corrections, also sent letters he said contained anthrax to the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, the eight-count indictment said.
Rome made some of the threats by telephone while an inmate in the S.C. Department of Corrections, the indictment said.
Rome, who is being held at the maximum security Kirkland Correctional Institution outside Columbia, is serving a multiyear prison sentence out of Greenville County for firearms violations and armed robbery. He is eligible to leave prison in 2030.
"Our intent is war on the federal government and specifically the assassination of the feds Marxist leaders Joe Biden and Kamala Harris," Rome said on a voicemail left at a Department of Corrections phone.
Those two officials deserve punishment because of "the theft of the last presidential election, promoting critical race theory in our schools, the vax mandate and using Marxist media outlets, notably CNN, to brainwash our citizens," the indictment quoted Rome as saying.
"Make America Great Again," Rome said at the end of that message, quoting a Pro-Trump slogan.
The indictment also mentioned current federal Judge Joe Anderson, saying "we" — the Proud Boys and the Aryan Brotherhood — require him "to vacate the bench immediately; otherwise we will execute the old man and post videos of his death on as many web platforms as we can."
The other federal judge was identified only as a "magistrate judge" in the indictment. Magistrate judges in the federal system usually handle a variety of pre-trial proceedings, including arraignments and bond settings.
Anderson declined to comment for this article.
The Proud Boys, the group Rome said he follows, are a far-right white nationalist organization. More than three dozen of its members, including its leader Enrique Tarrio, have been indicted on charges connected to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In September 2020, during a nationally televised debate with then-presidential candidate Biden, former President Donald Trump mentioned the Proud Boys, telling them to "stand back and stand by." The Aryan Brotherhood is a 20,000-member white supremacist prison gang, according to the South Poverty Law Center.
In 2015, Anderson sentenced Rome to 41 months in federal prison for threatening the life of then-President Barack Obama for being an African American "in the White House." Rome pleaded guilty to that charge. In 2014, Anderson also ordered Rome to undergo a psychiatric examination, according to federal court records. The results of that exam were not available.
The Wednesday indictment said some of Rome's threats were racist in nature and he used the slogan "white power."
In a threat made by letter in February to the federal courthouse in Portland, the indictment quoted Rome as saying he was sending "weapons grade anthrax" as a protest for failing "to arrest and prosecute Black Lives Matter activists despite the riots, looting, assaults and many other crimes by BLM in your city against White Citizens. .... WHITE POWER!"
In Rome's final alleged threat, made in March, the indictment quoted Rome as threatening two unnamed South Carolina federal judges with death by stabbing. "Vacate the benches and we may let you live."
Maximum penalties for each of the eight counts against Rome are five and 10 years in prison.
Rome's first threats were made in July 2020, continued in 2021 and into this year, according to the indictment.
Rome is being kept in a single cell at Kirkland.
"He is not in the general population, and he is not allowed to make phone calls," said Chrysti Shain, spokeswoman for the corrections department.
Telephone voicemails that Rome is alleged to have left were apparently made on an internal prison hotline that inmates can call to ask questions or make comments, according to Shain.
Rome is scheduled to be arraigned May 3 by Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett at the Columbia federal courthouse.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday is prosecuting the case for the government. Rome does not yet have an attorney, according to public records.
