Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks at a rally for Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, Sunday, June 9, 2024, in Las Vegas (AP Photo/John Locher).
A Macon, Georgia, man has pleaded guilty to a single charge of threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican, after he called her congressional office, harassed staffers and told them he had “a bead on her” with his sniper rifle.
“I’m gonna murder her,” Sean Patrick Cirillo, 34, has now admitted to saying in a Nov. 8, 2023, call.
As Law&Crime previously reported, prosecutors said Cirillo first posed as a donor when he called Greene’s office in November. A criminal complaint and FBI affidavit for Cirillo notes that he called Greene’s congressional office in Washington, D.C., twice on Nov. 8: first at 1:33 p.m. and then again at 5:36 p.m.
Prosecutors said they were able to trace Cirillo’s number back to him by accessing open-source databases and police reports from other incidents.
During the first call to the Washington, D.C., office, prosecutors say Cirillo vowed to kill Greene “next week.”
“Yeah, I got a bead on her. Like, a sniper rifle. A sniper rifle.”
“Tell the FBI, okay? I’m gonna kill this c—. Tell her. I’ll kill you too if you want,” he said, according to court records.
When Greene’s staffer asked him where he was calling from — prosecutors later traced his cellphone to a location in Inman Park in north Atlanta — he told them: “I’m calling from f— yourself, you f—ing c—” and proceeded to scream at the staffer: “F— your party, your grandchildren are gonna f—ing die. Die! Die!”
The tirade continued with the caller shouting “white boy c—” and “you little b—-! You don’t think you’re gonna get payback?!”
“You don’t think it’s gonna happen when you’re out of power?” Cirillo said.
When he called back at 5:36 p.m. that same day and Greene’s staffer asked Cirillo if he was the one who called earlier, prosecutors said Cirillo replied: “Oh I did. Yeah I did. I threatened you, right.”
Then he told the staffer: “I’ll come kill your family.”
The FBI showed up at Cirillo’s DeKalb County residence on Nov. 9 to question him. Court records show Cirillo admitted to making the threatening call to Greene’s office and then told the FBI agent that he did it to “get attention and had called multiple other people as well including other members of Congress.”
He also denied having a sniper rifle and no weapons were recovered from his home.
“We will not normalize violent threats in America, whether targeting elected officials or average citizens,” said Keri Farley, the FBI special agent in charge of the agency’s Atlanta office, on Tuesday. “Our democracy depends on the ability of members of Congress to do their jobs without fearing for their safety. We will continue to prosecute threats against public servants made in any form.”
Greene did not immediately return a request for comment to Law&Crime on Wednesday but she told local ABC affiliate WTVC that her office receives threats like the one Cirillo made “on an almost daily basis.”
Court records show that Cirillo was initially denied bond after his arrest but he was released with conditions in April pending criminal trial and without objection by federal prosecutors.
He was ordered not to drink alcohol while released and was required to submit his computer for inspections as well as undergo mental health treatments. Cirillo’s attorney did not return a request for comment on Wednesday but in a motion seeking reconsideration of his denied bond from April, Cirillo’s attorney noted that his client graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Georgia and that he attended graduate school at Wake Forest University. He was last employed with Home Depot as a data engineer but that job ended just a few months before he made the calls to Greene’s office.
Cirillo faces up to five years in prison and will be sentenced on Nov. 7.
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