A New Hampshire man working for the Federal Aviation Administration has been charged with threatening President Donald Trump via email.
Dean DelleChiaie, 35, a mechanical engineer at the FAA from Nashua, is alleged to have sent an email to the White House on April 21 that said: “I, Dean DelleChiaie, am going neutralize/kill you – Donald John Trump – because you decided to kill kids – and say that it was War – when in reality – it is terrorism. God knows your actions and where you belong.”
DelleChiaie was arrested Monday and appeared before a federal judge Tuesday. He is charged with “interstate communication of a threat.”
The FAA, which has gone through periods of volatility and job cuts during Trump’s second term, first alerted the Secret Service in January that DelleChiaie had used his work computer to search for ways to harm Trump, according to court documents. The searches included how to get a gun into a federal facility, what percentage of the population wants Trump dead and the phrase “I am going to kill Donald John Trump,” the criminal complaint says.
DelleChiaie is also alleged to have searched for the location of Vice President JD Vance’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s homes and the names and ages of their children.
After having made those searches, DelleChiaie asked the IT department at the FAA to clear his search history, according to court documents. The IT department alerted the FAA about the request, and the FAA suspended DelleChiaie before it passed the information along to the Secret Service, the complaint says.
A Secret Service agent and a Nashua police officer interviewed DelleChiaie at his apartment in early February, according to the agent’s affidavit. DelleChiaie is alleged to have admitted conducting the searches and also owning three firearms. While the charging documents do not specify whether DelleChiaie possessed the firearms legally, there was no reference to authorities’ confiscating them.
DelleChiaie told the officers that he was remorseful, but he shared that he was upset with the Trump administration because of the election, Trump’s presidential pardons and the Jeffrey Epstein files, the complaint says. It says he also said that he was depressed and in therapy, that he drinks to “black out” and that he uses marijuana daily.
The Secret Service agent detailed in the complaint that he had noticed several phrases written on a whiteboard on DelleChiaie’s refrigerator, including “Calm down more,” “Go to DC office if they do not action” and “Say arrest me ‘I am going to murder Donald John Trump – per defense of oath.’”
Weeks after that visit, DelleChiaie was accused of sending his email threatening Trump directly to the White House.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea K. Johnstone on Tuesday ordered DelleChiaie to be held without bail while he awaits trial. If he is convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
DelleChiaie filed paperwork with the court Tuesday requesting representation from a public defender.
DelleChiaie appeared in court the same day Cole Tomas Allen was indicted on a new charge in connection with the April 25 shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where Trump was present. He has not yet entered a plea in the case.
Allen was previously charged with attempting to assassinate the president alongside two additional firearms counts. Tuesday’s indictment adds a charge of assaulting an officer or employee of the United States with a deadly weapon.
He faces a maximum life sentence if he is convicted of just the attempted assassination charge.
