PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A man from Casa Grande has been sentenced for threatening to kill both major 2024 United States presidential candidates.
A judge sentenced 56-year-old Rene Ortiz to 38 months in prison on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.
A federal jury convicted Ortiz in June on two counts of making threats against successors to the presidency and one count of threats against former presidents.
Prosecutors said on Nov. 5, 2024, Election Day, Ortiz left a written note at the federal courthouse in Phoenix that claimed he would “execute the newly elected [President of the United States] by firing an M-16A2 service rifle with a magazine of 6 rounds,” which was directed at then-Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
On Nov. 25, 2024, Ortiz left a second note at the courthouse in Tucson, which said he was going to shoot “the incoming fraudulent elected [President of the United States] … at the inauguration on January 20th, 2025.”
Court documents show Ortiz filed a civil lawsuit in September 2024 requesting that Trump and Harris be removed from the ballot and that he be placed on the ballot for president, with Joe Biden as his vice president.
Ortiz, who claimed he was a U.S. Marine veteran, admitted to making the threats and said he would follow through “if my demands are not met,” according to court documents.
He was arrested on Jan. 17, 2025, days before Trump’s inauguration.
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