Hours before a Mercer County man was arrested for threatening FBI agents on the alt-right social media platform Gab, authorities say he sent similar text messages to his girlfriend in which he said he hoped that the children of the agents he wanted to kill would become parentless.
Those messages were entered into evidence against Adam Bies, 47, on Thursday during his detention hearing.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan ordered Bies to remain in custody pending trial, finding that he is a threat to the community. She noted that when he exited his home the night the FBI arrived to arrest him, he was carrying an AR-style rifle.
“I’m concerned about safety of the community and frankly, safety of law enforcement,” the judge said.
Bies was arrested after 11 p.m. on Aug. 12 when the FBI and state police went to his Mercer County home to serve a search warrant on him following online threats that were discovered on Gab. Bies allegedly had posted the threats in the days after the FBI searched the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
In the online threats, according to a federal indictment handed up against him, Bies said that anyone who works for the FBI deserves to die.
“I’m ready for the inevitable,” he wrote, saying that he expected to be killed by law enforcement. “My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop. I will not spend one second of my life in their custody.’”
FBI Special Agent Gregg Frankhouser testified during the detention hearing that the FBI, state police and an FBI SWAT unit arrived at Bies’ home just after 11 p.m. They surrounded the house and then used their armored vehicle’s public address system to ask Bies to come outside.
In addition, Frankhouser said, a hostage negotiator called Bies’ cellphone 15 times with no answer.
It took between 30 and 40 minutes for Bies to come outside, and when he did, he was carrying the rifle.
His 12-year-old son was in the house at the time.
Frankhouser testified that he heard agents telling Bies several times to put the gun down.
“I don’t know how quickly he put the gun down,” Frankhouser said, but he noted that the suspect never pointed the weapon at the agents.
“No he did not,” he said, “That would have ended differently.”
Investigators sat they found 12 other guns in Bies’ home, including four shotguns, four or five handguns and other rifles.
He also possessed a compound bow, which Bies referenced in another online threat, the government said.
“‘Remember feds, you never banned compound bows and razor tips, and your Kevlar vest will only stop the arrow from coming out your back (after it turns your heart into fajita meat,)’” he wrote.
Frankhouser testified that after Bies was taken into custody, he was respectful and cooperative, and gave agents access to his cell phone.
To unlock it, Frankhouser said, required a pattern to be drawn on the phone’s screen.
The pattern Bies used was a swastika.
Bies told Frankhouser that “‘a swastika doesn’t mean it’s an ideology. It’s a compound symbol that’s hard to duplicate.”
On cross-examination, the agent agreed that Bies said he was sorry when he was being questioned and that he never wanted to hurt anyone.
Defense attorney Sarah Levin proffered testimony from Bies’ girlfriend of about a year, Mandy Duvall, who would have told the court that he is a “good partner, gentle and kind, caring with her family members” and a hard worker.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Bengel argued that Bies is a danger to the community, and that no set of pre-trial release conditions could ensure he would not carry out his threats.
“Just hours before the FBI arrived, he indicated he was ready to die in violent conflict with federal agents,” Bengel said. “It’s very fortunate for everyone involved Mr. Bies was arrested without incident that night.”
Bengel told the court that text messages exchanged between Bies and Duvall showed that they hold contempt for the judicial process and that Bies would not respect any conditions of release imposed on him.
However, Levin argued that the government failed to show her client was a flight risk and that the charges against him are “just words.”
“These are serious words. These are scary words,” she said. “But as the evidence shows, they were words.”
Bies has no criminal history, Levin said, and there was no evidence he carried out any threats of violence.
“What people say online does not reflect who they are,” she said.
Paula Reed Ward is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paula by email at pward@triblive.com or via Twitter .
Mercer County man to remain in custody pending trial, accused of threatening FBI agents on Gab - TribLIVE
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