A former DuPage County prosecutor accused of threatening state lawmakers, gun control groups on social media

A former DuPage County prosecutor has been charged with threatening two state lawmakers and several gun control groups, and suggesting a bomb could go off at a downstate LGBTQ festival.

In a post on the social media platform X, then-assistant state’s attorney Samuel Cundari wrote, “Our patience grows short with you. The day we put your kids feet first into a woodchipper so we can enjoy their last few screams is coming,” according to a complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois.

The post on March 17 tagged the two lawmakers, the gun control groups, a volunteer with one of the groups and the Illinois attorney general's office. It was made on an encrypted social media account with the user handle @bigjohnskinner, according to the complaint, which charges Cundari, 30, with transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to injure another person.

None of the victims was identified in the complaint, but state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the chief sponsor of Illinois’ assault weapons ban, confirmed to the Sun-Times that he was tagged in the post.

Another social media post on May 15 that prosecutors say Cundari made from a different X account with the user handle @jastownsends suggested a bomb threat at the Springfield PrideFest, which was held last week.

“I sure hope NOBODY leaves a pressure cooker filled with ball bearings, glass and nails, filled with diesel fuel and fertilizer, with the over pressure safety valve disabled, near a natural gas line. That would be VERY sad and VERY unfortunate,” read the post, which was made in reply to a separate post by an anti-LGBTQ organization, according to the complaint.

Springfield PrideFest was sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield. The insurance company’s X profile received a similar bomb threat post May 16 from the same @jastownsends account, prosecutors said.

Cundari, a Wheaton resident, met with an FBI agent the next day and admitted to making the social media posts but insisted the comments were made as a “joke,” the complaint says.

According to the complaint, Cundari was an assistant state's attorney when he made posts, but is a not on the job now. The DuPage County state's attorney's office did not immediately respond to questions about his employment status.

Cundari faces up to five years in prison on the charge. He could not immediately be reached for comment.