Michigan man sentenced for threats to kill Christians with AR-15

A Michigan man has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for threatening to kill conservative Christians with an AR-15 rifle in the days before the 2024 presidential election, federal prosecutors announced.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, 26-year-old Isaac Sissel was sentenced to 30 months after pleading guilty in April to transmitting threats in interstate commerce.

Prosecutors said Sissel created Reddit accounts with names such as “ShootUpTrumpRally” and “PlanningToKillTrump,” and on November 2, 2024, he sent an anonymous tip to the FBI threatening an attack “against conservative Christian filth in the event Trump wins the election.”

The message came just two days before a Trump campaign rally in Michigan and three days before the presidential election, prosecutors said. It also followed four months after Trump had been shot at a rally with an AR-style weapon.

Although Sissel claimed in his threat to have a stolen AR-15, investigators found no evidence that he actually possessed a firearm. As a convicted felon, he was prohibited from owning guns.

The court also applied a hate crime motivation enhancement to Sissel’s sentence after finding that he targeted victims based on their religion.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI Detroit Joint Terrorism Task Force and the FBI’s Ann Arbor Resident Agency.

“We live in evil times,” U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said in a statement. “Even in America, Christians are routinely targeted for death by violent extremists like this man. The First Amendment is a safeguard of religious liberty and free speech—and so it does not protect true threats that undermine religious liberty.”