A Twentynine Palms man was convicted last week of making harassing telephone calls to government offices and of threatening to injure congressional staffers and an intern who answered the calls. Robert Stahlnecker, 48, was found guilty by a Riverside jury Thursday of one count of making threats by interstate commerce and five counts of anonymous telecommunications harassment. The jury acquitted him of two counts of threatening federal employees. According to the evidence presented at his two-day federal trial, on September 26, 2019, Stahlnecker made eight telephone calls within a seven-minute span to the Washington, D.C., office of Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. During the calls, Stahlnecker berated the intern who answered the call, insulted the intern by using vulgar language and finally, threatened to come to the senator’s office to kill her.
Stahlnecker made more than 10,000 calls to government agencies and elected officials between January and November of last year, and made abusive telephone calls to staff members and interns of multiple members of Congress, according to court documents.
Robert Stahlnecker’s sentencing hearing is set for May 4; he faces a statutory maximum of five years in federal prison.
