Barron Trump received death threats from an Illinois woman, prosecutors say
Susan Walsh/AP
- An Illinois woman was charged with threatening to kill Barron Trump last week.
- According to prosecutors, the woman sent multiple emails to Barron Trump's high school headmaster.
- In a meeting with Secret Service agents, the woman confessed to sending the emails, prosecutors claimed.
An Illinois woman was accused of spending months threatening Donald Trump and his 17-year-old son Barron Trump through emails sent to Barron's school headmaster.
According to a criminal complaint first reported by CourtWatch, Tracy Fiorenza fired off threats to Barron Trump's school master between May and June, sending explicit threats to the former president's youngest son.
As election season nears and amid a spate of criminal indictments against Donald Trump, death threats against public figures and officials have reached disturbing levels of severity.
Last week, a Utah man accused of sending death threats to Joe Biden was shot and killed as the FBI served a search warrant at his house. According to NPR, federal arrests for threats against public officials have risen over the last five years, and tend to spike around crises and elections. Last year, there were 74 federal arrests tied to threats against public officials, up from 38 in 2013, NPR reported, citing research from the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center.
Fiorenza was charged with transmitting threats to kill Donald and Barron Trump across state lines on August 9, per court documents, after fessing up to the ominous messages, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors, on May 21, Fiorenza sent her first email to Barron Trump's school headmaster at Oxbridge Academy, in Palm Beach, Florida.
"I will state that I will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Barron Trump straight in the face at any opportunity that I get!" Fiorenza wrote in the email, prosecutors said.
Weeks later, on June 5, she emailed the school headmaster again with a second threat, prosecutors claimed in the complaint.
"I am going to slam a bullet in Baron Trump's head with his father IN SELF DEFENSE!," Fiorenza wrote in the second email, according to prosecutors.
A Facebook page which matches Fiorenza's name features numerous conspiratorial posts about Trump and other politicians, and includes a purported letter from the Office of the Inspector General rejecting her request for Barron Trump's school records in 2020.
Throughout Trump's presidency, Barron Trump was largely shielded from the public eye. Now, Barron — Donald Trump's only child with Melania Trump — is finishing high school at the Oxbridge academy in Florida, and is set to graduate with the class of 2024.
Prosecutors said in the criminal complaint that Fiorenza agreed to sit for an interview on June 14, at the US Secret Service Chicago field office, where she admitted to sending the emails.
Fiorenza had no attorney listed in court documents. She did not respond to Insider's attempts to reach her online.