A federal jury in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, found Tyler Maxon Avalos, 30, guilty of interstate transmission of a threat to injure the person of another — the charge built around a social-media post that prosecutors said offered $45,000 for the killing of then-U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi. U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen announced the verdict, which was returned after a federal jury trial before U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Minnesota (Nov. 4, 2026)
The verdict closes the trial phase of a case that began more than a year earlier with a tip from a member of the public in another state. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, on October 9, 2025, a Michigan user of an internet-based social media platform saw a post the user believed threatened Bondi, who was then Attorney General, and reported it to the FBI. The user told the FBI the post was, in the user's words, imposing a hit on Bondi for $45,000, and gave the account name @liminalvoidslip.
What the post showed, according to the evidence at trial
Prosecutors said the threatening post featured a photograph of then-Attorney General Bondi with a sniper-scope-style red-dot crosshair imposed on her forehead, and words stating that she was “wanted” “dead or alive,” “preferably dead.” The person who made the post also added a comment below it that read, “when they don’t serve us then what?” The FBI traced the post to Avalos, Rosen's office said.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Minnesota (Nov. 4, 2026)
The court record in the case, United States v. Tyler Maxon Avalos, Case No. 25-CR-435 (SRN/EMB), shows how the charge was framed in law. In an order on motions in limine filed October 29, 2026, Judge Nelson recorded that a superseding indictment returned on January 29, 2026, alleged that on or about October 9, 2025, Avalos transmitted a TikTok post containing a threat to injure the victim, with the purpose of issuing a threat and with knowledge that the communication would be viewed as a threat, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). The same order denied the government's request to admit nine other social-media communications by Avalos on unrelated political issues, finding they made no reference to Bondi and were not probative of whether a true threat against her was made.
“The jury's guilty verdict today is the result of the continuing campaign by my office and federal law enforcement to target those that threaten violence in the political arena,” U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen said. “Politically motivated threats and violence are a plague on our society. Rest assured, however, that federal law enforcement agencies are on high alert, at all times, for such threats and violence, and the United States Attorney's Office remains committed to prosecuting all perpetrators.”
The wider evidence prosecutors put before the jury
Rosen's office said Avalos's social-media profile page contained various symbols associated with anarchists, including a link to an “Anarchist FAQ,” and that he used several platforms to engage with, promote or post content that celebrated the killing of Charlie Kirk. His accounts also made references to Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, including one post featuring an image of a sticker reading “be the Luigi you want to see in the world,” followed by an anarchist symbol, prosecutors said. Other comments attributed to his accounts in the announcement included “I bet if politicians got kirked they'd start acting right,” “do you expect to remove fascists from power without bloodshed,” “feds need it next,” and “the whole administrations needs to be put on a wall.” Those passages were presented by prosecutors as part of their account of the case; the jury's verdict itself was on the single interstate-threat count described above.
Prosecutors also said a review of Avalos's phone, seized during a search of his residence, uncovered a video narrated by Avalos stating that he believed he knew where a CEO of a technology company lived with his wife and child. In the video, according to the announcement, Avalos said: “Since we got the brave souls that are targeting CEOs, I think that he should be next on the list, because obvious reason. Don't disappoint please…” No charge arising from that video was described in Wednesday's announcement.
His record, and the office's wider threats campaign
Avalos had a criminal history that includes a felony stalking conviction in 2022 in Dakota County, Minnesota, and a felony domestic battery conviction in 2016 in Polk County, Florida, Rosen's office said. He additionally had several misdemeanour domestic-assault convictions. Dakota County is the Minnesota county immediately south of St. Paul, in the Twin Cities metropolitan area where the federal trial was held.
Rosen placed the verdict inside a broader run of threat prosecutions in Minnesota this year. He said his office this year has won the convictions of individuals who threatened a total of eight federal judges, one United States Supreme Court justice, four members of the U.S. House of Representatives and two members of the U.S. Senate. He also listed, as part of that same campaign, the conviction of an individual who assaulted a Minnesota member of the House, charges against three individuals accused of assaulting a journalist singled out for the journalist's assumed political views, charges against fifteen individuals accused of plotting and carrying out acts of violence to impede law enforcement, a charge against an individual accused of plotting a mass-casualty attack at the Mall of America, and the guilty plea and consecutive life sentences for the assassin of the former Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives and her husband.
What happens next
Wednesday's announcement did not give a sentencing date, a sentencing range or any statement from Avalos or his defence. Sentencing in a federal case is imposed by the district judge — here Judge Nelson — at a later hearing, after the verdict. The case was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from other law enforcement partners, and was prosecuted by First Assistant United States Attorney Joseph S. Teirab and Assistant United States Attorneys David Green and Benjamin Bejar. For readers in Minnesota and across the United States, the case is a concrete illustration of a line federal prosecutors repeat in every such case: a post written as a “wanted” graphic with a price on it is not treated as ordinary political speech by investigators or, in this case, by a jury — it is charged, tried and now convicted as a federal threat offence.