A 32-year-old UConn student has been arrested, accused of making threats against President Barack Obama and his immediate family.
Joshua Phillip Klimas, 32, of Coventry, was arrested yesterday on a federal criminal complaint.
The U.S. Secret Service arrested Klimas at his residence.
Authorities said Klimas, using the alias John Q Public, sent a message to the whitehouse.gov website on June 1 that contained several threatening statements against President Obama and his family, including “If you do not resign by the end of the year I will kill you!”
Authorities traced an IP address, which ultimately led them to Klimas. UConn police said he had sent threatening e-mails to a professor in February, but no charges were filed.
Klimas had been enrolled at UConn since the fall of 2010. He has been suspended from UConn and is not allowed on campus, according to the criminal complaint.
Members of the U.S. Secret Service interviewed Klimas at the UConn Student Union and he admitted that he created the post, according to the criminal complaint.
During the questioning, Klimas became agitated and threatened that "someone is going to do what I wrote if he doesn't change," according to the complaint.
He also admitted to sending between 10 and 15 angry messages to WhiteHouse.gov and Congress.gov.
Klimas told authorities that he was briefly committed, was being treated UConn's Mental Health Services and uses medical marijuana to treat anxiety, according to the complaint.
He appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez in Hartford and has been ordered to be admitted to a local hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
The U.S. Secret Service, with the assistance of the UConn Police Department and the Coventry Police Department, investigated.
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