DENVER (AP) — A man who blamed exposure to far-right extremist content for his online threats to kill Democratic election officials in Colorado and Arizona was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday.
U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews said the penalty for such “keyboard terrorism” needed to be serious enough to deter others, particularly because threats against public officials are on the rise. People need to work out differences through the democratic process, not violence, Crews said.
“The public must not accept this as the norm,” he said in handing down the sentence for Teak Ty Brockbank.
Brockbank, 45, pleaded guilty in October to making threats between September 2021 and August 2022 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is now governor. He also threatened a Colorado judge overseeing his DUI case and threatened to kill any federal agents who came to his house.
In a statement, Griswold said conspiracy theories spread by the far right have incited threats and violence against election officials.
“I will not be intimidated,” she said.
Brockbank, dressed in a khaki jail uniform, apologized for his “ugly posts" and said he has turned away from the fear, hate and anger he found online. He asked Crews to sentence him to home detention instead of more time behind bars.
Federal prosecutors sought three years in prison for Brockbank, the maximum recommended under sentencing guidelines. He asked for leniency, saying he made the posts when he was drinking heavily, socially isolated and spending his evenings consuming conspiracy theories online. Jonathan Jacobson, a Washington-based attorney for the Justice Department, pointed out that the threats continued during a period when Brockbank wasn't drinking.
Brockbank's attorney referred to his client — who has been in jail since he was arrested in August — as a “keyboard warrior,” pointing out there was no evidence that he planned to carry out the threats. Brockbank spent time on social media sites such as Gab and Rumble, the alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing and promoting far-right extremism.
The sites delivered “the message that the country was under attack and that patriotic Americans had a duty to rise up and act,” attorney Tom Ward said in a court filing. He told Crews that Brockbank was drawn to QAnon conspiracy theories and that he regularly consumed online content from Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser.
Ward noted that the Trump administration's Justice Department was seeking a tough sentence for someone who was influenced by some of the same extremist content that motivated people to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 and were later pardoned by Trump.
But Crews, who was nominated by President Joe Biden, dismissed that argument, saying the Jan. 6 pardons were granted by a different branch of the government based on separate interests.
Before announcing the sentence, Crews read some of Brockbank's threats, including descriptions of how officials should be killed, starting with one in which Brockbank said Griswold should “hang by the neck."
Crews said he believed Brockbank’s remorse was genuine and urged him to follow through with his decision to turn away from hate even though he was going to prison.
Brockbank was prosecuted by a task force started under the Biden administration in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting election officials.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the task force was still operating.
The unit has been led by the Justice Department’s public integrity section in Washington, which has dwindled from more than two dozen lawyers to just a handful as the Trump administration has shifted resources to priorities like immigration and other matters.
Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Feb. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
