A man charged with making threats against Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar was sentenced to one year and a day, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
Patrick W. Carlineo Jr. was arrested after making a call to the Minnesota congresswoman’s office last March, during which he spoke to a staffer and made threats against Omar, according to NBC. During the call, he asked “Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood?” and “Why are you working for her? She’s a [expletive] terrorist,” according to the prosecution. (RELATED: Rep. Ilhan Omar Describes 9/11 Terror Attacks: ‘Some People Did Something’)
“Somebody ought to put a bullet in her skull. Back in the day, our forefathers would have put a bullet in her [expletive],” he said. The staffer also recalled Carlineo claiming that he’d “put a bullet in her [expletive] skull.”
Prosecutors believed that the threatening call was prompted by Carlineo’s hatred of Omar.
“Because he hates individuals he views as radical Muslims being in the United States government, he believed that Congresswoman Omar supports Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and that Congresswoman Omar’s election to the United States Congress was illegitimate,” said the U.S. Attorney’s Office in a statement Friday.
Carlineo, a convicted felon, had a loaded .45-caliber handgun, three rifles, two shotguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition at his home, according to the prosecutors. He was found guilty of criminal mischief in 1998, which banned him from owning guns. He plead guilty to making the threats and unlawfully possessing firearms in November, according to NBC.
Omar wrote a letter on behalf of the defendant in November to the judge presiding over the case to ask for leniency.
Sharing my full letter on the the sentencing of Patrick W. Carlineo, a man convicted of threatening my life.
We must apply a system of compassion to criminal justice.
Who are we as a nation if we respond to threats of political retribution with retribution ourselves? pic.twitter.com/s96jjh8AlD
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) November 19, 2019
“The answer to hate is not more hate; it is compassion,” she wrote. “Punishing the defendant with a lengthy prison sentence or a burdensome financial fine would not rehabilitate him. It would not repair the harm he has caused. It would only increase his anger and resentment.”