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Mass. man charged with threatening to kill Trump, ‘hang him from the Statue of Liberty’
Prosecutors say the suspect made multiple violent Facebook posts targeting the president, and then pulled a sword on responding FBI agents.
A Great Barrington man is facing federal charges after allegedly posting repeated threats on Facebook to kill and injure President Donald Trump, the U.S. attorney’s office says.
Andrew Emerald, 45, was indicted on eight counts of interstate transmission of threatening communications, according to a statement from Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Leah Foley’s office.
Emerald was arrested Wednesday morning and appeared in federal court in Springfield later that day, Foley’s office said.
Following his arrest, authorities searched his residence and reported recovering bladed weapons, according to an affidavit filed in support of his detention.
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According to the affidavit, FBI agents executed an arrest warrant at Emerald’s home around 6 a.m. After receiving no response to repeated knocks, agents forced entry using a battering ram.
Emerald initially refused to comply with orders to exit the residence, telling agents he was not going with them and disputing that they had a warrant, the affidavit states. He later appeared holding what agents described as a long metallic sword and ignored commands to drop it.
Shortly after, Emerald agreed to surrender and was taken into custody, according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors allege Emerald made eight separate threatening Facebook posts from May to July 2025, according to the indictment.
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In one post, he wrote that Trump would be “dead and in the ground by 2026” or he would go “hunting him down.”
Another post described plans to kill Trump publicly and hang his body from the Statue of Liberty.
“We’re going to f****** kill Trump on public television so the world sees what we do to f****** monsters and then we’re gonna hang him from the Statue of Liberty until his pathetic bloated corpse rots off falls in the ocean,” the post reads, in part.
Additional posts allegedly referenced traveling to Mar-a-Lago, burning it down, and carrying out violence against Trump.
In a July 2025 post, Emerald wrote that if Trump was not dead by 2026, he would be “coming for [him] personally.”
If convicted, Emerald could face up to five years in prison on each count, along with up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000, according to Foley’s office.
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