LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada federal court jury acquitted a Las Vegas man of charges he made threatening phone calls to state election officials the morning after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. .
Gjergi Luke Juncaj was found not guilty Wednesday in US District Court in Las Vegas after trial on an indictment stemming from four phone calls allegedly made within an 18-minute span on January 7, 2021, from the same phone number to the Nevada Secretary of State. state office.
Juncaj’s federal public defense attorneys and an official with the US attorney’s office in Las Vegas did not immediately respond Thursday to emails about Juncaj’s case.
Juncaj could have faced up to eight years in prison on four felony threatening phone call charges.
He was indicted in January 2022, just after the one-year anniversary of violence at the US Capitol by supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump and followers of the false claim that Democrat Joe Biden’s election had been stolen.
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His indictment alleged that Juncaj accused the woman who responded to the calls of “stealing the election” and treason; he said that he expected her children to be abused; and said that the woman and other people in his office “were all going to die.”
The indictment says the calls stopped after a Nevada State Police officer called back and Juncaj allegedly complained that he was being harassed and disconnected the call.
Federal prosecutors had highlighted the case as one of the first submitted by a task force the Justice Department created in 2020 to ensure elected, appointed or volunteer poll workers remain free from “threats and intimidation.”
Court documents said Juncaj also uses the names Gjurgi Juncaj and George Juncaj.
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