Army vet accused of threatening VA
30-year-old indicted after alleged threats made over pension feud
A 30-year-old Army veteran has been indicted and accused of sending an interstate threat from Massachusetts to the Department of Veterans Affairs Pension Intake Center in Wisconsin.
“You take my pension and the second I get out of Prison I will go to a Moms Demand Action meeting. I figure if I’m leaving I might as well take the trash on my way out right?” Drummond Neil Smithson allegedly wrote to the department on July 23, 2020, referencing an activist anti-gun group. The quote is from the indictment document.
“The Anti-gunners will all hide behind their chairs, calling 911, pleading for a guy with a gun to come and save them. Would be one hell of a big mess to clean up. Try Me,” he allegedly continued.
Smithson, 30, of Ayers, was indicted in federal court in Boston on Thursday on one count of use of interstate communications to transmit a threat to injure. He is receiving disability pension from the VA, according to the feds.
In the alleged communication, Smithson said that he has been incarcerated for about five months and has spent 200 days in psychiatric hospitals to get the pension he refers to extensively.
At one point, he refers to a Florida man walking into a VA hospital waiting room and killing himself there “Because someone at the VA didn’t take him seriously. If you want to be that someone,” Smithson allegedly wrote, “then go right ahead.”
Smithson is referencing a federal case against him from the Southern District of Florida. In that case, Smithson is charged with possession of firearms by a person prohibited to do so subject to a protective order. He entered a plea agreement in that case on April 27.
Fort Lauderdale police went to an apartment on Sept. 12, 2019 to assist with Child Protective Services, and Smithson allegedly told them that he had multiple rifles and handguns in the apartment.
Smithson is barred from possessing guns as part of a protective order issued from a court in Montgomery County, Tennessee. Florida police arrested him that Sept. 19.
“Smithson admitted he was aware of the order,” the affidavit states, “but believed that because it was issued by a corrupt judge, that Florida would not enforce it.”
He maintained a similar stance in his alleged missive to the Wisconsin VA: “The US Constitution says that I have the right to bear arms, so technically I did not even commit a crime by doing so.”