May 22 (UPI) — A former Republican House candidate from Florida has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for threatening to kill his political opponent.
William Robert Braddock, 41, of St. Petersburg, Fla., was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge William Jung, the Justice Department said in a statement.
The former Republican candidate for Florida’s 13th Congressional District pleaded guilty in February. He was charged with interstate transmission of a threat to injure.
Braddock was running for the Republican nomination for the 13th Congressional District in 2021. Though court documents do not name the target of his threats, information in the filings and media indicate it was Anna Paulina Luna, the frontrunner in that 2022 election.
According to federal prosecutions, Braddock viewed Luna — referred to in court documents as Victim-1, the Republican Party frontrunner — as his only obstacle to winning the primary.
He disparaged Luna for months to her peers and tried to involve himself in her life, court documents show. Then, in June 2021, during a phone call with one of Luna’s acquaintances, he threatened to have her murdered.
The court documents state he threatened to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” who could make Luna “disappear.”
“I will be the next congressman for this district. Period. End of discussion,” he said, according to federal prosecutors. “And anybody going up against me is [expletive] ignorant for doing so.”
He continued by calling Luna “ignorant” and because of that, “I don’t have a problem taking her out, but I’m not going to do that dirty work myself, obviously.”
Then in November 2021, Braddock flew to Thailand and then settled in the Philippines where he remained until surrendering to Manila authorities in June 2023.
In September 2024, he was indicted and deported to the United States to stand trial.
Luna is currently serving her second term as the U.S. House Representative for Florida’s 13 Congressional District.