TALLAHASSEE — A 36-year-old Tallahassee man pleaded guilty to four federal counts after sending online threats to kill President Donald J. Trump, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell over the course of several months, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida announced.
Diego M. Villavicencio pleaded guilty to two counts of sending interstate threats, one count of impeding or retaliating against a federal official and one count of threats against the President. He faces up to 25 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin tied the prosecution to the broader climate of threats against public officials. “As the terrifying events at the White House Correspondents Dinner this past weekend showed, threats of violence can quickly escalate to acts of violence by deranged individuals,” Heekin said. “My office is committed to aggressively prosecuting criminal threats of violence against public officials to stop dangerous individuals, like this defendant, before they become would-be assassins. Criminal threats directed at public officials are becoming alarmingly more common, and this must stop now. We have zero-tolerance for such criminality in the Northern District of Florida and will seek maximum punishments to keep our public officials safe.”
Court documents detail a pattern of escalating threats across multiple platforms. On Sept. 15, 2025, Villavicencio posted on his X account an image of red crosshairs pointed at Powell’s head with the text “Jerome. Powell will be shot and killed September 23” and a second post with the same image reading “Jerome is next.” The following day, he responded to a post by Swalwell writing, “I’ll kill you and your family and you won’t do anything about it. Corruption listens to bullets.” He then sent the congressman a direct message stating, “You are going to be shot and killed on September 24.”
The threats escalated further on Jan. 25, 2026, when Villavicencio posted on 4chan that he would be driving to Mar-a-Lago “to take a couple of shots at trump and some of the other corrupt plutocrats.”
The case was investigated jointly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Secret Service, the United States Capitol Police and the Federal Reserve Board Protective Service. Assistant United States Attorney Eric W. Welch is prosecuting the case.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 20, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. before Chief District Court Judge Allen C. Winsor at the United States Courthouse in Tallahassee.