A man from North Dakota has been accused of sending a threatening email to federal officials regarding the potential assassination of Minnesota Sen. Melissa Hortman and her spouse.
Charles Dalzell, age 46, allegedly dispatched an email to the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in North Dakota on Sunday.
In his message, he stated, “I don’t want this situation to be like Minnesota over the weekend.”
Dalzell seemed to reference the recent shooting incident involving a man named Vance Bolter, who attacked Hortman and her husband at their home. Bolter reportedly posed as a police officer to gain access before opening fire.
Dalzel went on to say, “If lawmakers don’t follow the laws that the state has written, some people will probably be rightly angry.” It’s, I suppose, a pretty alarming sentiment.
Dalzell also claimed he owed money from a court ruling, although no records clarify which cases he was talking about. He further expressed that authorities were trying to silence him while hiding misconduct by civil servants.
The next day, he escalated things by sending another email insulting several North Dakota officials, including Governor Kelly Armstrong. He was later arrested that day.
Court documents revealed that Dalzell had previously emailed expressing thoughts of violence against a lawyer he had hired. When confronted by FBI agents about his threatening email, Dalzell argued he posed no risk, claiming that if he had intended harm, he wouldn’t have communicated it.
Dalzell had owned a firearm that the local sheriff’s office confiscated due to an earlier incident involving minors. He expressed a desire to retrieve it but left empty-handed from the sheriff’s office, only to be arrested shortly after. Investigators reportedly found methamphetamine and a machete on his property.
His criminal history includes prior convictions for disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, and domestic violence. According to Dalzell, the gun was part of an ongoing incident related to disorderly behavior involving minors, but he insisted he hadn’t threatened anyone with it.
In the wake of the assassination in Minnesota, numerous politicians across the U.S. have become more vigilant, including several officials named on Bolter’s alleged hit list.
