A Twentynine Palms man was arrested Friday on a federal criminal complaint alleging he made more than 10,000 harassing telephone calls this year to government offices and made death threats against a congressional staffer and an intern who answered the calls. Robert Stahlnecker, 48, was arrested at his residence on charges of threatening federal officers and employees, interstate communications with threat to injure a person, and anonymous telecommunications harassment. He remains in federal custody with arraignment scheduled for December 26.
According to the Dept. of Justice, on August 28, Stahlnecker called a congresswoman’s office in San Mateo, California three times within a span of five minutes, berated the intern who answered the call, using vulgar language to insult her, and finally, threatened to come to the senator’s office to kill her. On September 26, Stahlnecker allegedly made eight telephone calls within a seven-minute span to the Washington, D.C., office of a U.S. Senator from Ohio. During the calls, Stahlnecker allegedly berated the intern who answered the call, using vulgar language to insult her and finally, threatened to come to the senator’s office to kill her.
Federal investigators say Stahlnecker has made more than 10,000 calls to government agencies and elected officials between January and November of this year. U.S. Capitol Police has been investigating Stahlnecker since 2009, opening 41 investigations into threatening or harassing telephone calls he has made involving 53 different elected officials. Robert Stahlnecker has criminal convictions for harassment in New Jersey and making terrorist threats with intent to terrorize in Pennsylvania, according to the criminal complaint. In 2015, he was convicted in in federal court in Riverside of impeding the operations of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs by making thousands of telephone calls to the VA.
