California man gets prison for threats over 2020 election

A California man has been sentenced to three years in prison for threatening harm in text messages sent during the attack on the U.S. Capitol to a New York-based family member of a journalist. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York says 36-year-old Robert Lemke was sentenced Monday in Manhattan federal court. Lemke is a resident of Bay Point in the San Francisco Bay Area. He pleaded guilty in October to one count of making threatening interstate communications. Prosecutors alleged that the message was among electronic and audio messages sent to approximately 50 people from November 2020 through early January 2021.