U.S. President Donald Trump's supporter attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) USA 2026 at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center, in Grapevine, Texas, U.S. March 28, 2026. REUTERS
Spencer Gear told a judge that he is not a killer by nature, despite his disturbing threats. He’d merely caught a virus, reports The New Republic.
“The 34-year-old Nevadan was sentenced to five years in prison Monday for threatening to murder federal judges who handled cases involving Trump and January 6ers,” reports TNR. “His messages, which were mostly delivered by way of phone calls between November 2023 and July 2024, were explicit: ‘This is a death threat,’ he told one victim. ‘I’ll spill your blood,’ and ‘You can’t do s—— to Donald Trump,’ Gear warned targets.
But TNR reports the seeming MAGA fanatic changed his tune as he sat across from the judge handling his criminal case Monday, pleading for mercy as he tried to walk back his violent promises.
“I’m embarrassed that I ever talked to people in such a manner,” Gear reportedly said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The republic cannot survive if we continue this path of political discourse.”
Gear claimed his brain had been infected by a “mind virus” from the internet and that the alleged disease had caused him to lash out at people he believed were going to destroy the country by, reported the Reno Gazette Journal. It did not matter that the people allegedly destroying the nation were judges overseeing the legal issues of Trump and his supporters.
This isn’t the first so-called attack from an internet head virus. Christian Zionists, say MAGA influencer Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, have been 'seized by this brain virus.'"
Billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk complained repeatedly of a “woke mind virus” threatening “modern civilization,” which he said prompted him to buy the social media platform now known as X.
The jury that convicted Gear of 20 counts, including nine counts of threatening a federal official and 11 counts of transmitting threats, appeared to have made no accommodations for Gear’s “virus.” His 5-year prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release.
Gear threatened to assault and murder public officials over a seven-month period before he was sentenced Monday by United States District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey.
But while Gear is packed away, social observers warn the increasingly hostile political climate is showing no signs of abating, and some political scientists were worried about what that could mean for Americans in the near future, particularly after the assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk inflamed political tensions across the nation.