A Florida man has been sentenced to one year and three months in prison for leaving threatening voicemails for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Court records show that a federal judge in Orlando sentenced 58-year-old Robert Francis Pratersch on Friday. He was convicted in April of threatening a federal official and interstate transmission of a threat to injure.
Federal prosecutors say Pratersch left three profanity-laced, anti-Semitic voicemail messages last fall at Sanders’s office in Burlington, Vermont. Authorities say Pratersch threatened to behead Sanders “ISIS-style” and videotape the execution. The remark was a reference to the Islamic State militant group.
Pratersch was indicted by a federal grand jury in February and arrested later that month in St. Cloud, Florida.
Sanders is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
