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Adam Michael Nettina, 34, of West Friendship, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to making threats and sending messages to Maryland and Virginia state delegates who made statements in support of transgender people following the Nashville shooting in March.
Specifically, Nettina targeted the Washington, DC-based Human Rights Campaign, federal prosecutors said.
“Bias-motivated threats of violence terrorize entire communities and have no place in our society,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.
According to court documents, on Tuesday, March 28, the organization received a threatening voicemail from a number that was traced back to Nettina in Howard County.
The message referenced the mass shooting at a school in Nashville the previous day, where the gunman was identified as being transgender shooter that killed six people, including three children.
“You guys going to shoot up our schools now? Is that how it’s going to be? You just gonna to kill little kids,” the caller said in the message, according to the affidavit. “You’re just going to slaughter (expletive) little kids. Let me tell you something, we’re waiting.
“And if you want a war, we’ll have a war. And we’ll (expletives) slaughter you back. We’ll cut your throats. We’ll put a bullet in your head,” it continued. “You started this. You’re going to kill us? We’re going to kill you ten times more in full.”
Investigators were able to trace the call back to Wynfield Road in West Friendship, leading them to identify Nettina as a suspect. He was surveilled for several days and ultimately apprehended on Friday, March 31.
Nettina admitted that he left this voicemail for the purpose of issuing a threat and with the knowledge that the voicemail would be viewed as a threat.
Further, Nettina intentionally selected the advocacy organization as a target of his message because of the actual and perceived gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation of the people who work at and are assisted by the organization, prosecutors said.
He was later linked to social media posts targeting officials who celebrated "Trans Day of Visibility" online last year.
In October 2022, when an online story was published about an interview with a Virginia State delegate, where she advocated for the prevention of abuse against trans children, Nettina also reached out to the press office with disparaging words.
Prosecutors say that he sent an emails two days after the report came out stating that "The delegate is a terrorist. You are a terrorist. You deserve to be shot and hung in the streets. You want to come after people? Let’s go b**ch.”
Nettina also sent a similar message to another email address of the delegate two minutes later.
Officials said that he "intentionally selected the delegate and her campaign staff as the recipient of his email because of the actual and perceived gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation of the people and constituents for whom the delegate had expressed support."
When he is sentenced in November, Nettina faces five years in federal prison for making threats transmitted by interstate communications.
“All Americans should be able to go about their daily lives without fear and without threats of violence,” Special Agent in Charge Thomas Sobocinski of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office added.
“Protecting the American people is the FBI’s number one priority and we remain committed to protecting the rights of all Americans."
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