Forum Photo by Michael V. Cusenza
Hunt was arrested Tuesday during a pre-dawn raid of his Ridgewood residence.
By Forum Staff
A criminal complaint was filed Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn charging Brendan Hunt, also known as “X-Ray Ultra,” 37, with threatening to murder United States officials, according to federal prosecutors.
Hunt was arrested Tuesday morning at his Ridgewood residence and ordered detained pending trial.
As alleged in the complaint, on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the riot in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Hunt posted a video to Internet-based video sharing site Bitchute in which he exhorted his viewers to violence, urging them that “[w]e need to go back to the U.S. Capitol when all of the Senators and a lot of the Representatives are back there, and this time we have to show up with our guns. And we need to slaughter these m—–f——.” The video was one in a series of statements by Hunt posted on social media since at least Dec. 6, 2020, in which he called for violence and “public execution” against members of Congress.
“Before the assault on the Capitol building, and again after, Hunt’s alleged online commentary directly called for the assassination of members of Congress. This is not a hard message to understand—threats of violence against our public officials won’t be tolerated. Mr. Hunt was arrested this morning by the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force. To others from this area who still don’t get it – if you are considering a similar path to ‘take up arms’ like Mr. Hunt did, that road leads nowhere except a reservation at our building downtown,” said FBI NY Assistant Director-in-Charge Bill Sweeney, Jr..
If convicted, Hunt faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
