DENVER (CN) - A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Colorado man to 37 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to one count of committing threats in interstate commerce.
"The types of threats Mr. Brockbank made are on the rise, and the public must not accept that as the norm," said U.S. Judge S. Kato Crews. "Those who would consider making threats similar to those made by Mr. Brockbank must know the consequences of this kind of keyboard terrorism are serious."
Teak Brockbank, 45, was arrested last August on a single charge of making threats in interstate commerce after investigators determined he had authored online posts dating back to September 2021 threatening election officials in Arizona and Colorado, including against the latter's secretary of state, Jena Griswold. Brockbank's calls for violence also targeted the local judge who had presided over his fourth DIY case and Colorado Supreme Court justices following their 2023 decision to remove Donald Trump from the state ballot due to the 14th Amendment's prohibition on insurrectionists holding office.
"Once these people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other and we will just sit back," Brockbank had written as Teakty4u under a Pepe the Frog icon.
After initially pleading not guilty, Brockbank entered a guilty plea on Oct. 23, 2024.
"I consumed the echo chamber for years before I started making statements online," Brockbank told the court. Wearing a kaki jumpsuit stamped "Teller County," Brockbank asked the judge to sentence him to house arrest so he could return home in time to plant a garden for a fall harvest and resume caring for his animals. He pledged to rejoin his church and live a life a redemption.
"Those thoughts were not my own," Brockbank said.
On behalf of Brockbank, defense attorney Thomas Ward urged the court to sentence Brockbank to time served, saying the arrest helped give his client the hard reset needed to recover from being brainwashed by online by the QAnon community.
"In these online communities, there was a lot of hate and vitriol being generated," Ward said. "He was being told, essentially by people who were deliberately trying to influence him, and others like him, on a daily basis that these individuals were traitors and were harming our country, and people like him needed to stop it or the country would descend into chaos."
Ward, who practices with Stuart & Ward in Denver, also argued that a harsh sentence falls out of line with President Donald Trump's pardoning of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Crews said he did not find Ward's comparison persuasive, given that each person convicted for participating in the J6 insurrection had been granted due process in a court and then pardoned by a separate branch of government with its own eligibility criteria.
"Those pardons don't make Mr. Brockbank's crime here any less serious," Crews said.
U.S. attorney Jonathan Jacobson said the biggest threat of Brockbank's words wasn't that he would personally murder any of the victims but that he could inspire others to carry out the assassination.
"Whether or not Mr. Brockbank intended to murder a public official, he certainly put language out in the universe that made it more likely that that would happen," Jacobson said.
Additionally, Jacobson recalled that Brockbank had kept a loaded, cocked gun kept behind his front door, a weapon he was prohibited from possessing due to a 2002 conviction and had threatened to use against law enforcement.
"This is a unique case because of the sheer volume of threats. This wasn't a lapse of judgment. This was sustained. This was continuous. This persisted even after a call from the FBI that raised concerns about the threats," Jacobson said.
Prosecutors said none of the victims requested restitution from Jacobson.
In a statement, Griswold wrote, "The far right has spread conspiracy theories to incite threats and violence against secretaries of state and election officials. I will not be intimidated and I will not back down in protecting our democracy and our freedoms."
After issuing Brockbank the maximum recommended sentence, Crews urged him to hold himself to his promise to lead a better life.
"I hope you can find a healthier mindset and find a more constructive means to express your frustrations with society," Crews told Brockbank. "Life is too short to live on a hate-filled path."
Source: Courthouse News Service
