St. Paul man pleads guilty to threatening US representative from California

A St. Paul man pleaded guilty to calling a U.S. representative and leaving a threatening voicemail in the week after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Jason Robert Burham Karimi, 32, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to interstate communication of a threat against a U.S. Representative, according to acting Minnesota U.S. Attorney W. Anders Folk.

Charging documents state that on Jan. 11, a voicemail left on the office phone of a U.S. representative from California threatened to "cause you pain in every way possible."

The caller also alluded to the representative’s house being vandalized and saying that "wasn’t far enough." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home had been vandalized on New Year’s Day, but the criminal complaint redacts the victim’s name.

Investigators with the U.S. Capitol Police Department and the FBI were able to trace the phone number used to leave the voicemail to Karimi, and a federal agent arranged to meet him on Jan. 12. In that interview, Karimi admitted to the agent that he had left a message on the victim’s phone, the complaint states.

Karimi also said the voicemail was meant to cause "political pain" to the representative’s career and not their "physical self."

He was charged just days after the FBI agent spoke to him. He initially pleaded not guilty but has since amended his plea.