Toledo man charged with threatening to kill Vice President JD Vance, possession of child sexual abuse materials  

A Toledo man has been charged with threatening to kill Vice President JD Vance and with possession of child sexual abuse materials.

Shannon Mathre, a 33-year-old man from Toledo, Ohio, was indicted by a federal grand jury and charged with trying to kill the vice president last week.

U.S. Secret Service agents arrested Mathre on Feb. 6. He made an initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge for the Northern District of Ohio that same day and will remain in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for Feb. 11.

“Hostile and violent threats made against the Vice President, or any other public official, will not be tolerated in our District,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio David M. Toepfer said in a release. “Anyone threatening this kind of action will face swift justice and prosecution.”

“We commend the actions of our local and state law enforcement who collaborated with U.S. Secret Service to take this individual into custody,” Toepfer added in the release.

Federal authorities allege that Mathre said, “I am going to find out where he is going to be and use my M14 automatic gun and kill him,” referring to the vice president.

The grand jury also charged Mathre with engaging in the receipt and distribution of child sexual abuse material after federal agents found multiple files containing CSAM in his possession.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that the second charge came about as a result of the investigation into Mathre’s threats against the vice president.

“While arresting this man for allegedly threatening to murder the Vice President of the United States, a serious crime in and of itself, federal law enforcement discovered that he was also in possession of child sexual abuse materials,” Blanche said in a release. “Thank you to federal, state and local partners in working together to bring justice twofold to this depraved individual.”

If Mathre is found guilty of threatening to kill the vice president, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and up to $250,000 in statutory fines. If found guilty of the CSAM charges, he could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison and a maximum statutory fine of $250,000.

Last month, in an unrelated case, federal authorities charged 26-year-old William DeFoor with vandalizing Vance’s Cincinnati home and assaulting a federal officer.

The New York Post reported that DeFoor’s father, who shares his son’s name, is a Harvard University alumnus who has worked as a pediatric urologist in Cincinnati for decades. He also works as a professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine. According to the news source, DeFoor and his family live in a $1.3 million house in the city’s wealthy Hyde Park neighborhood.

The Post also reported that the younger DeFoor has been going by the name Julia, indicating he could identify as “transgender.”