PHOENIX — A Phoenix man has been ordered by a judge to obtain mental health services after he emailed a threat to Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates.
Ryan S. Hadland, 45, was recently sentenced to three years of probation after he pleaded guilty to making a threat in November 2022, according to the Arizona Attorney General's Office.
Hadland sent Gates an email during the fallout of Arizona's general election, when multiple Republicans lost statewide races and blamed elected officials in Maricopa County over Election Day issues.
Blake Masters, who lost the U.S. Senate race to Democrat Mark Kelly, specifically called for Gates and the other county supervisors to "lose their jobs" or "resign in disgrace."
The vitriol resulted in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office investigating threats targeted at the county's elected officials.
The email sent by Hadland a few days after Election Day accused Gates, a Republican, of trying to "cheat our voting system in Maricopa County" and warned Gates he may soon fall victim to poisoning.
"There are many poisons that aren't detectable when they are naturally present in the human body," part of the defendant's email stated. "The poisons which enter the body with most ease will be strategically placed in every aspect of your routine life. I promise you, you are about to be poisoned multiple times over again to make sure your death, or corpse, is carried out.”
Gates announced last summer he would not seek re-election in 2024.
According to the AG's office, Hadland was ordered by the court not to have contact with Gates and his family.
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