A man from Florida has been sentenced months after pleading guilty to charges of threatening to kill a lawmaker.
72-year-old Michael Shapiro, who is from Greenacres, Florida, received a two-year prison sentence for sending death threats to California Rep. Eric Swalwell and his children. The sentencing came during a hearing hosted in Fort Lauderdale and took place almost nine months after he was charged with calling the Democratic lawmaker’s Washington, D.C. office and leaving threatening voicemails.
On December 19, 2023, Shapiro called Swalwell’s office five times, leaving a message in each instance. According to court documents, three of the voicemails included threats to kill both the lawmaker and his children. Law enforcement was able to connect Shapiro to the calls via tracking the number back to his home in Florida.
The man was arrested in January. The following May, he pleaded guilty to having initiated the threatening messages. One of the voicemails included Shapiro warning that he was going to “come after” Swalwell and “kill” him. Another heard him say he would “kill your children.”
Other calls seemed to reference Christine Fang, a woman believed to be a Chinese spy who is suspected of having ties to the lawmaker. These references included Shapiro accusing Swalwell of having an affair with her. Though a point of investigation for some time, the House Ethics Committee decided last March to end its probe into the potentially scandalous relationship and did not take any action against Swalwell.
On the contrary, the two-year investigation confirmed that the Democratic representative was not at fault. Swalwell previously said that he was the target of a Chinese intelligence scheme and, despite being cleared of inappropriate behavior, has suffered from the rumors that persist.
According to prosecutors, Shapiro also conceded to charges against him in 2019, when he pleaded guilty to threatening someone else. But Swalwell is also not immune to death threats. In 2022, one of the representative’s staffers received a message that someone was heading to his office to kill him.
