Elsewhere: Crescent City man accused of threatening Obama SFGate
On the day that President Barack Obama is due to visit San Francisco, a Crescent City man is in custody on federal charges of e-mailing a message threatening to kill the president and his family.
John Gimbel, 59, was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on Tuesday in connection with an e-mail sent Sept. 28.
The indictment does not say to whom the e-mail was sent, but quotes profanity-laced wording threatening to kill the president and his wife and children.
Gimbel is accused of three counts of threatening the president, threatening the president’s immediate family and transmitting the threats through a medium of interstate communication.
Gimbel is currently in custody on the charges, according to court documents.
U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Jack Gillund said he could not give any details about the case.
Court papers in a separate civil case show that Gimbel was arrested by the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Department in 2004 on suspicion of posting a threatening message on an Internet forum after he received a $5 parking ticket.
The message asked citizens to “grab those hi-powered deer rifles” and “dust the skull” of the Crescent City police chief.
A state court conviction in that case was later overturned. Gimbel then filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state, but a federal judge in Oakland dismissed it in 2007, calling Gimbel’s lawsuit “profanity-ridden drivel.”
