Maine man accused of making threat against President Trump, federal court documents say
On April 5, a Maine Department of Public Safety senior investigator was having lunch at a restaurant in Bridgton, Maine when Bell allegedly made the threat, according to an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint filed in federal court this week.
Advertisement
The officer was sitting at the bar and noticed a person, later identified as Bell, looking through the windows of the officer's unmarked vehicle in the parking lot of the restaurant. When Bell came into the restaurant he allegedly struck up a conversation with the officer, the affidavit stated.
'At some point in the conversation, Bell made a threat to the President of the United States ('POTUS'), by stating, 'I wanted to shoot Bush but didn't, but now Trump is in and I don't care for him,' and then continuing to say either, 'I'll try to shoot him' or 'I'll just shoot him,'' the affidavit stated.
After making those comments, Bell said he needed 'to stop making comments about killing the President,' because he was going to get in trouble, according to the affidavit.
Advertisement
'Bell continued to discuss his hatred for Former POTUS ('FPOTUS') George W. Bush but indicated he never acted on those thoughts,' the affidavit said.
Bell allegedly made other comments to the officer, including that he '... is able to take over a plane and crash it, hurting a lot more people,' the affadavit stated. 'Bell reiterated to the officer that he was surprised he is still able to fly and that the government still trusts him with a plane, stating he can fly undetected out of 'Eastern Slopes' to do anything he wants, 'like fly to DC.''
Eastern Slopes is a regional airport located in Fryeburg, Maine, according to the affidavit.
Police obtained a state warrant for Bell's arrest and he was arrested without incident later that day.
Following his arrest, Bell agreed to speak to special agents from the FBI and US Secret Service and he denied making any threats to the President during his conversation with the officer, the affidavit stated.
He also told them that in January 2025 he was fired from his job at a company based out of Kansas City, Missouri because of threats, the affidavit stated.
'Bell, a software engineer, indicated the threats were that he was going to put 'bugs in his code,' as well as leak information should he ever acquire a security clearance,' the affidavit stated.
The company Bell said he worked for 'is an aviation company that works with avionic displays, navigation and communication platforms, among other products, in the commercial, corporate, and defense markets,' the affidavit said.
Emily Sweeney can be reached at
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
24 minutes ago
- CBS News
Detroit investment fund owner sentenced in $39M wire fraud scheme
Over $39 million was involved in a scheme that resulted in a federal conviction against a Detroit investment fund owner, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan reported. Andrew H. Middlebrooks has been sentenced to 100 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of wire fraud in the case, according to the press release issued Monday. The scheme involved obtaining over $39 million from investors "by means of false and fraudulent material pretenses, representations, and promises." The Federal Bureau of Investigation led the investigation, assisted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. "This financial charlatan used sophisticated methods and a complex web of deception to trick unsuspecting victims into trusting him with their money. Con artists like this will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said in his statement. Middlebrooks was the majority owner, chief executive officer, and portfolio manager for EIA All Weather Alpha Fund, the district attorney's report said. He solicited clients for the fund by saying he could get large returns for investors. Instead, the report said, the fund "suffered catastrophic losses." Instead of informing the current investors that the fund was failing, he "solicited new investors with false statements about the fund's performance and lulled existing investors by lying to them about the returns their investments generated." An example cited by the district attorney involved a 2019 report that falsely claimed the fund's track record had a cumulative return of 476.81%, with 81.82% of monthly trading showing a profit. When the scheme collapsed, there were losses to 97 investors. "The sentencing of Andrew Middlebrooks underscores the significance of white-collar crimes and the lasting harm they impose on hard-working Americans," said Reuben Coleman, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office. "White-collar crimes threaten the integrity of our financial systems and undermine the trust and security of communities."
Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
Illegal migrants charged in string of crimes
Fox News contributor and former FBI special agent Nicole Parker joins 'Fox News @ Night' to discuss an illegal migrant accused of killing three in a Florida highway crash and several migrants charged in a murder-for-hire plot.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
On trial: Who is Donna Adelson, matriarch of family implicated in Dan Markel murder?
The quest for justice for an acclaimed Florida State University law professor and the trial of Donna Adelson is set to begin once again in a Florida capital city courtroom. More than ten years ago, two hired Miami killers fatally shot Dan Markel in his Tallahassee garage. The contract killing came after an acrimonious divorce and a court ruling that his ex-wife, Wendi Adelson, couldn't relocate from Tallahassee with their children to be with the rest of her family in South Florida. So far, Markel's former brother-in-law, Charlie Adelson, Adelson's former girlfriend Katherine Magbanua, and the two men Adelson hired have all been sentenced to prison in connection with the murder-for-hire plot. The complicated, sensational case, which The Tallahassee Democrat has chronicled from the beginning, involved lengthy investigations by Tallahassee police and the FBI, a confession, wiretaps, recorded conversations, four trials, features on Dateline and 20/20, and was the subject of a popular true-crime podcast. The matriarch of the prominent South Florida family implicated in the conspiracy will be back in the spotlight Aug. 19 after her 2024 trial was derailed. In September of that year, on the first day of jury selection, Adelson's lead attorney, Dan Rashbaum of Miami, abruptly withdrew – a move that upended the trial before it could begin. All three of her attorneys exited or were removed after Charlie Adelson, who is appealing his conviction, announced he would not waive any conflicts of interest involving Rashbaum's representation of him during his trial last year and his mother. Donna Adelson has since hired two local attorneys: A former prosecutor turned judge and a well-known local lawyer to represent her. Here's what we know. Who is Donna Adelson? Donna Sue Adelson, 74, is married to Dr. Harvey Adelson, retired dentist and founder of the Adelson Institute for Aesthetics and Implant Dentistry in Tamarac, Florida. She has three children, Charlie, Wendi and Rob, a physician who has been estranged from the family for years. One week after Charlie Adelson was found guilty last year, Donna and Harvey Adelson were stopped at Miami International Airport before they could board a one-way flight to Vietnam, a non-extradition country. Donna Adelson was arrested and indicted on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in the 2014 killing, citing jailhouse calls she made to Charlie after his sentencing saying she was putting her financial affairs in order and planning to leave, either through self-harm or by getting out of the country. Adelson has pleaded not guilty. Adelson is the second member of her family and the fifth person to be charged in connection to the Dan Markel contract killing. What happened to Dan Markel? Daniel Eric Markel, 41 at the time of his death, was a Canadian-born Florida State law professor, author and prominent legal scholar. He was married to fellow FSU professor Wendi Adelson and they had two young sons, but they separated in 2012 and battled through an extremely acrimonious and bitter divorce in 2013. Markel pulled into his garage in Tallahassee after running errands on July 18, 2014, when two men approached him and shot him twice in the head. He died the next day. How it all began: FSU law professor dies in shooting Over nearly 10 years of investigations, wiretapping, and testimony, prosecutors have said Markel's killing was the result of a murder-for-hire plot involving Donna Adelson, her son Charlie (a periodontist at the family business), Charlie's girlfriend at the time Katherine Magbanua, and the hitmen, Latin Kings gang leader Luis Rivera and Sigfredo Garcia, who is also the father of Magbanua's children. Why was Dan Markel murdered? For the shooters, cash. Rivera testified that he and Garcia were paid $100,000 in a murder-for-hire plot. They received the money in stacks of stapled hundred dollar bills the next day and they split it with Katherine Magbanua, who Rivera said set up the deal. In Charlie Adelson's trial, prosecutors said Markel's murder 'stemmed from the desperate desire of the Adelson family' for Wendi and the two sons to have the freedom to move to South Florida to be near her family. In 2012, while Markel was away, Adelson had moved out of their house with the children and most of the couple's possessions and left divorce papers on the bed, according to court filings. Markel won 50/50 custody and an order prohibiting Adelson from moving them away in the divorce, and the two parents battled in court for months over every detail of their children's lives. In 2014, Markel filed motions claiming Adelson had misrepresented her financial assets and had taken a 2-caret ring belonging to Markel's great-aunt, a Holocaust survivor. He also filed a motion to prevent the children's grandmother Donna from having unsupervised time with them after hearing she was making disparaging remarks about him to the children. How many people have been found guilty in the Dan Markel murder? To date, four people have been found guilty in the conspiracy. Rivera, who was already doing time on an unrelated charge, took a deal and received a 19-year sentence. Garcia, who Rivera said pulled the trigger, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019, as was Magbanua in her 2022 trial. Charlie Adelson was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in 2023. Luis Rivera: Rivera pled guilty in 2016 to second-degree murder in exchange for a 19-year sentence to run concurrently with a federal sentence on an unrelated case for his statements and cooperation with prosecutors. In 2019 he testified that he was with Garcia when Markel was murdered. Sigfredo Garcia: In October 2019, Sigfredo Garcia was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Katherine Magbanua: After her potential conviction as part of Garcia's trial was ruled a mistrial, Magbanua was tried again in 2022 and was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation of murder. She is currently serving life in prison. Charlie Adelson: A 12-person jury deliberated for three hours in November 2023 and found Adelson guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. Donna Adelson: A week after Charlie Adelson was found guilty, his parents Donna and Harvey were stopped in Miami International Airport trying to board a flight with one-way tickets to Vietnam, a country that does not have an extradition agreement with the U.S. What was Donna Adelson charged with? Donna Adelson was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and solicitation in Markel's murder, the same charges her son Charlie was found guilty of by a jury in just three hours. What is the evidence against Donna Adelson? Much of the likely evidence has appeared in the previous trials. The Tallahassee Police Department suggested that Donna Adelson was a prime suspect in the Markel murder back in 2016 when TPD initially presented probable cause affidavits to the State Attorney's Office. At the time, State Attorney Willie Meggs dismissed them as speculation. Investigations over the next nine years revealed: Prosecutors said Donna and Harvey Adelson repeatedly tried to convince Wendi to coerce Markel into allowing her to move their sons to South Florida, with Donna suggesting they offer Markel $1 million to change his mind. Donna suggested that Wendi threaten to enroll the children of the devoutly Jewish Markel in a Catholic school, according to Donna Adelson's arrest affidavit. Markel also filed a motion to prevent Donna from having unsupervised time with the children after hearing about disparaging remarks she was making about him to the children. According to the arrest affidavit, cellular records showed "numerous contacts" between Magbanua, Charlie Adelson and Garcia before and after the killing, and contact between Garcia and a phone registered to Harvey Adelson. Charlie also frequently contacted Donna before and after Markel's death. Wendi Adelson told investigators the day of the murder that her brother had joked it would be cheaper to buy her a TV as a divorce gift than hire a hitman. From roughly 460 miles away, Donna arranged a television repair appointment for Wendi the morning of the homicide. At Charlie Adelson's trial, Magbanua testified that when she went to his home the night of the killing he told her his parents had just left, leaving behind money "that his mom had washed," the affidavit said. She said the money was damp and moldy. After the murder, Magbanua received more than $17,000 in paychecks from the Adelson's practice, handwritten and signed by Donna, from September 2014 to at least April 2016, prosecutors said, on top of her portion of the money for the killing and over $56,000 in cash. She also was sold Charlie Adelson's Lexus, which was registered to Harvey Adelson, for $1,700. In 2016, an undercover agent contacted Donna Adelson with a letter about the murder and demanded $5,000. She contacted Charlie to discuss the threat. In a later call, when Charlie asked what the letter was for, she said, "This TV is probably about five," meaning $5,000, according to the affidavit. After he visited both his parents for a huddled conversation, Charlie took Magbanua to the Dolce Vita restaurant to complain about the would-be blackmailer, what he knew, and what Charlie would do about it. That conversation was recorded and became key evidence in Charlie's trial. One of the things he told Magbanua was, "if they had any evidence we would have already gone to the airport." After the meeting, Charlie called Donna to report that he was handling everything. After another letter and a text were sent to Donna Adelson by investigators, there were multiple calls and meetings between Charlie and his parents. Donna called the undercover agent and denied all knowledge. Another of Charlie Adelson's girlfriends, June Umchinda, told the FBI that after Rivera and Garcia were charged with murder Charlie and Donna Adelson both seemed more stressed, and Donna told her that she felt "Dan Markel was haunting her from the grave," the affidavit said. After Charlie Adelson's guilty verdict, Donna called him in jail several times and told him she was "getting things in order, creating trusts, and making sure her grandchildren are taken care of," the affidavit said. She also discussed plans for suicide and plans to flee to a non-extradition country. On Nov. 7, 2023, Donna and Harvey Adelson booked one-way flights to Vietnam with a stop in Dubai, less than 48 hours before a grand jury was scheduled to meet that might have taken up her case. The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with Vietnam. Who will be taking the stand in the Donna Adelson trial? For the first time, all three Adelson children could take the stand. Wendi Adelson, whom the state considers an uncharged co-conspirator, will return to the stand and testify, under a limited immunity deal, as she has in all the previous trials. She has long denied any involvement or knowledge of the murder conspiracy in sometimes testy exchanges with prosecutors. There are indications that her oldest brother, Rob Adelson, who has been listed before as a state witness, will be called to the stand in his mother's trial. Charlie Adelson, who testified in his own defense last year that he was being extorted by the two killers through his then-girlfriend and that his mom was subsequently the victim of a ruse blackmail operation by the FBI, was transported from a South Dakota prison and booked Friday into the Leon County Detention Facility. He could potentially testify for the defense. It is unknown if Donna Adelson will take the stand in her own defense. Other key witnesses include Pat Sanford, the FBI agent who arrested Donna Adelson, and Oscar Jiminez, the retired FBI agent who posed as a Latin Kings gang buddy of Rivera when he confronted Donna Adelson outside her Miami condo. Have Harvey or Wendi Adelson been charged? Wendi Adelson, who has denied involvement with the murder and testified under immunity at several trials, has not been charged. State Attorney Jack Campbell told the Tallahassee Democrat that the state did not have the evidence to arrest Harvey Adelson, but had enough to arrest Donna Adelson. Her attempted flight overseas sped things up and pushed law enforcement 'to make a decision quickly,' Campbell said. 'That's what forced our hand,' Campbell said. "We started talking to some of our law enforcement partners about the complexities of trying to bring someone back from either Dubai or Vietnam. And that might be a very complicated and lengthy process. So that's why we had to make a decision quickly." The day after the arrest, investigators seized two phones and an iPad from Harvey Adelson. GAVEL-TO-GAVEL COVERAGE: The Tallahassee Democrat will livestream each day of the trial of Donna Adelson from the courthouse in Tallahassee. Watch on and the Tallahassee Democrat's Facebook and YouTube pages. For best viewing experience: Download the Tallahassee Democrat app to watch and receive text alerts on when to watch – from opening arguments to the verdict. Tallahassee Democrat reporter Jeff Burlew contributed to this article. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Who's Donna Adelson? What to know about new trial in Dan Markel murder
