TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — There will be no bond for now for a Tucson man who is charged with threatening to blow up the White House and multiple locations in Washington DC.
About a month ago an email arrived in the main inbox for KGUN9 News.
It threatened the White House and didn’t stop there.
It said, in part “Be advised. In 12 hours, there’ll be a strike against the White House. There’s bombs all around Washington DC. This is not a joke. Be advised. You Americans will pay.” Then it went on to make an Islamic reference.
It’s KGUN policy to forward threats to law enforcement. So we did.
The FBI says it traced the email to a phone registered to a Tucson man named Jacob Aaron Hicks. Agents say they found drafts of other threats ready to send to other TV stations including at least one in the DC area.
The charging document against Hicks makes a point of stating KGUN’s email networks connect to Scripps, our parent company in Cincinnati. Crossing state lines makes this a Federal case.
Cameras are not allowed in Federal court so we can’t show Hicks most recent court appearance. The hearing was to decide if he would be released on bond but his own attorney dropped the request.
There’s a local arrest warrant that charges Hicks with violating probation for an assault on a health worker. If he bonded out of Federal custody, he’d be arrested on that warrant and end up in the Pima County Jail.
The Federal Magistrate judge also denied bond because of reports that say Hicks would be a high risk for jumping bond and running away. Hicks' attorney says she may ask for bond sometime in the future.
