Police: State man charged with threatening Lamont on Twitter
A Waterford man has been charged this week in connection with alleged threats he made against Gov. Ned Lamont via social media, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Jonathan D. Wright, 41, of Waterford, was taken into custody Monday and charged with seconddegree threatening. He was held on a $30,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 29. It was not immediately clear if Wright had an attorney.
The affidavit, released by Connecticut State Police on Tuesday, indicated the investigation began with an Oct. 26 report of a threatening comment Wright made on Twitter in response to a post from Lamont on Oct. 23.
In the tweet, Wright threatened Lamont while
criticizing the governor’s handling of Connecticut nursing home patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. The document claimed he also made other comments related to the virus and nursing homes.
The Connecticut State Police Counter Terrorism/ Cyber Task Force traced the account that posted the comment to Wright, the affidavit said. Wright did not have a criminal history and had no guns registered to him, the document said.
When investigators further examined Wright’s Twitter page, they also found additional tweets to Lamont on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21 similar to the one that started the investigation, according to the affidavit.
When police confronted Wright at his Laurel Crest Drive home in Waterford on Oct. 28 about their investigation, he said he did not “mean anything threatening” when he wrote the tweet, the affidavit said. He said he was just angry about what he had been hearing.
Wright admitted to sending the tweets and wrote a statement indicating he wrote it out of anger “with no malicious intent,” the affidavit said. He told investigators he was an eight-year Air Force veteran and wished no harm to the governor.