Florida Candidate Charged with Threatening to Kill Primary Opponent

Charges Revealed Against Florida Candidate

The Jus­tice Depart­ment has revealed an indict­ment charg­ing a Flori­da man with threat­en­ing to kill his polit­i­cal oppo­nent in the 2022 election.

William Robert Brad­dock III, 41, of St. Peters­burg, Flori­da, was charged with threat­en­ing two peo­ple, one of whom the DOJ said was his pri­ma­ry oppo­nent in the race for Flori­da’s 13th Con­gres­sion­al District.

Alleged Threat to “Disappear” Opponent

Accord­ing to the indict­ment, Brad­dock alleged­ly threat­ened to “call up my Russ­ian-Ukrain­ian hit squad” and make the pri­ma­ry oppo­nent “dis­ap­pear.” The DOJ did not name the alleged vic­tims, but one of Brad­dock­’s pri­ma­ry oppo­nents, Rep. Anna Pauli­na Luna, R‑Fla., had pre­vi­ous­ly sought a restrain­ing order against him.

Restraining Order and Campaign Termination

In 2021, a Flori­da court grant­ed Luna and a con­ser­v­a­tive activist friend of hers, Erin Olszews­ki, a tem­po­rary restrain­ing order against Brad­dock, who they claimed was stalk­ing Luna and want­ed her dead. Brad­dock ter­mi­nat­ed his cam­paign short­ly after the judge grant­ed the injunction.

Fleeing the Country and Deportation

After alleged­ly mak­ing the threats, Brad­dock fled the coun­try and was lat­er found to be resid­ing in the Philip­pines. He was then deport­ed to the U.S. and made his first court appear­ance in Los Ange­les on Thursday.

Potential Prison Sentence

Brad­dock is charged with one count of inter­state trans­mis­sion of a true threat to injure anoth­er per­son, for which he could face a max­i­mum of five years in prison if convicted. 

The case is part of the Jus­tice Depart­men­t’s Elec­tion Threats Task Force, which was con­vened in 2021 to address threats tar­get­ing elec­tion workers.