A federal judge sentenced an insurance salesman to 21 months in prison on Tuesday for making threatening phone calls to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Sheriff Patrick Labat, saying he wanted to deter others from acting similarly against public officials doing their jobs.
U.S. District Court Judge J.P. Boulee called the voicemails left by Arthur Ray Hanson II in advance of former President Donald Trump’s Georgia indictment in August 2023 “appalling” and noted their racist language.
“It wasn’t 1963,” Boulee noted, “it was 2023.”
Both Willis and Labat were present at the sentencing and each testified that they feared for their lives and that of their families after they received Hanson’s voicemails. Labat said he upped his security detail to 24 hours a day in response, and Willis previously said she posted security around her daughters’ homes.
“I signed up for my job. My daughters did not,” Willis said.
“Ultimately there has to be something said about coming after someone for doing their job,” Labat said.
Hanson, 59, of Huntsville, Ala., offered a tearful apology to the two elected officials, saying the calls do not represent who he is and that he is “sickened” by the language he used.
“I let the internet overwhelm me and got caught up in the stupid drama,” he said.
Hanson called the Fulton County Government customer service line on Aug. 6 — a week before former a Fulton grand jury handed up felony racketeering charges against Trump and 18 others — at 11:25 a.m. and left a message for Labat, which lasted about a minute and a half.
“If you think you gonna take a mug shot of my President Donald Trump and it’s gonna be OK, you gonna find out that after you take that mug shot, some bad (expletive)’s probably gonna happen to you,” Hanson said in the voicemail, among other threatening statements, including, “I’m warning you right now before you (expletive) up your life and get hurt real bad.”
Five minutes later, Hanson again called the customer service line and left a voicemail for Willis.
“I would be very afraid if I were you because you can’t be around people all the time that are going to protect you; there’s going to be moments when you’re going to be vulnerable,” Hanson said, according to court records.
Willis has spoken about the flood of threats she’s received in response to her prosecution of Trump and the rapper Young Thug. But she previously said that Hanson’s voicemail stood out because of the mention of her family.
At a June hearing, Hanson pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting interstate threats. Hanson, who has struggled with alcohol abuse, said Tuesday that when he made the calls he was drunk and that he didn’t take medication he uses for seizures.
He said he has never been a violent person but that he has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, anger management courses and, for the first time in his life, seeing a psychologist, which led to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
“It will never happen again, no matter what you do to me,” he told the judge.
Despite Hanson’s efforts to rehabilitate himself and character references delivered Tuesday from his son, colleagues and friends, Boulee said he ultimately opted to sentence him to 21 months because Willis and Labat didn’t know whether Hanson intended to act on his statements.
“I believe their fear was real … and legitimate,” he said.
Afterward, Willis told reporters she was “pleased” with the sentencing and that she felt like Boulee was sending a needed message that such conduct against elected officials — and African Americans — would not be tolerated.
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