Rene Ortiz, 56, of Casa Grande, Arizona, was sentenced on October 20, 2026, by Senior U.S. District Judge Stephen M. McNamee to 38 months in federal prison for threatening to kill President Donald Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona said.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Arizona

Ortiz was convicted by a federal jury on June 8, 2026, of two felony violations of making threats against successors to the presidency and one felony violation of making threats against former presidents, the Justice Department said. Particle News independently reported the same sentence, conviction counts and courthouse-note details on October 22.

Source: Particle News

On November 5, 2024, Election Day, Ortiz delivered to the federal courthouse in Phoenix a written threat to “execute the newly elected [President of the United States] by firing an M-16A2 service rifle with a magazine of 6 rounds,” directed at both candidates, Harris and Trump, prosecutors said. After the election, on November 25, 2024, he delivered a second threat to the federal courthouse in Tucson, threatening to shoot the incoming president at the inauguration on January 20, 2025.

When the U.S. Secret Service interviewed Ortiz about the threats, he repeated his intent, and he was arrested on January 17, 2025, ahead of the presidential inauguration, the Justice Department said. The Secret Service conducted the investigation with assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amy Chang and Abbie Broughton prosecuted the case, case number 25-CR-00153-PHX-SMM.

Particle News also reported, from court records, that Ortiz had filed a civil suit in September 2024 seeking to remove the major-party candidates from the ballot and place himself on it. That background is reported as part of the court record in the case; the sentence itself rests on the jury's June convictions on the three threat counts.