Mobile man pleads guilty to making threat against Biden
By Brendan Kirby
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MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — Prosecutors and the defense on Tuesday worked out a plea bargain for a man who admitted to making a threat against President Joe Biden, but the judge indicated she may not accept a recommendation of leniency.
John Andrew Bazor Jr., 38, of Mobile, pleaded guilty to making a threat through interstate communications. He admitted that he called the White House switchboard on July 10. According to court records, he said: “I am coming to assassinate the President; I can’t wait to see your faces when I put a bullet in him.”
The U.S. Secret Service traced the call to Mobile and arrested Bazor eight days later at a motel in McGowin Park.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to recommend that Bazor be sentenced to the roughly 18 months he has spent behind bars since his arrest. Defense attorney Gordon Armstrong noted that is longer than the minimum sentence under advisory guidelines and asked the judge to release his client to his mother’s custody until the Jan. 18.
“I’m not ready to do that,” said U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose, who noted that Bazor has a criminal record, a domestic violence warrant and is the subject of a protection-from-abuse order.
DuBose said she needs more information.
“I’m not so sure I’m going to be agreeing to the government’s recommendation” she said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Roller said Bazor had been using drugs when agents arrested him. He said the defendant also had been experiencing mental health problems. DuBose last month concluded that Bazor was competent to stand trial.
“They do not rise to the level of legal insanity,” Roller agreed.
Armstrong suggested that his client, though legally competent, was suffering psychiatric problems at the time.
“He’d been calling Washington, D.C., for a while,” he told the judge. “He’d been calling local offices for various reasons.”
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