Man angry over stripper's $750 debt made death threats to judge and prosecutor, feds say
A scheme that federal prosecutors say Amin Abbas Eltayeb launched to try to collect on the $750 loan he had made to an exotic dancer allegedly resulted in threats against a Florida judge, prosecutor and sheriff’s deputy.
Warned by the woman’s boyfriend to leave her alone after she had repaid only $7.50 of the loan, Eltayeb at first complained to Palm Beach sheriff’s deputies that the boyfriend had threatened to harm him. Then, about a month later, a Palm Beach County judge, prosecutor and sheriff’s deputy got letters, seemingly from the boyfriend, at home and at work. The letters made death threats against them and their families, demanding the dismissal of parking tickets issued to the stripper’s boyfriend, reports the Sun-Sentinel.
When police investigated, the boyfriend insisted he was not responsible and pointed authorities to Eltayeb. He said he didn’t know the boyfriend’s driver’s license number, a necessary part of the scheme, although he had previously provided it to the sheriff’s office, according to the newspaper.
Then Eltayeb got a speeding ticket. Subsequently, graphic, explicit death threats were mailed to the work and home addresses of the Davie police officer who issued the ticket and the city police chief, the feds say.
A search of Eltayeb’s home and computer turned up evidence implicating him in the threats, including handwriting on letters that matched handwriting on a police report he filed, wrote a FBI agent, Justin Fleck, apparently in a filed affidavit in the case.
Arraigned Monday in federal court in Ft. Lauderdale on charges that he mailed 10 threatening letters to targets in Broward and Palm Beach counties, Eltayeb, 22, pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bond as a potential danger to the community, the newspaper reports.
His legal counsel described him as a “harmless computer nerd” who has never been in trouble before and never intended to carry out the threats made in the letters.
