Dec 20, 2022 - Politics & Policy

Man who threatened to kill CDC chief Rochelle Walensky pleads guilty

Rebecca Falconer

Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC and top infectious disease expertAnthony Fauci at a Senate hearing in 2021. — CDC chief Rochelle Walensky and NIAID director Anthony Fauci at a 2021 Senate hearing. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images

A man who threatened to kill CDC director Rochelle Walensky has pleaded guilty to "making threats in interstate commerce," federal prosecutors said Monday.

Details: Robert Wiser Bates told FBI agents he called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, to leave threatening voicemails for Walensky in July 2021 that stated "he would kill Dr. Anthony Fauci as well," per a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Mississippi.

What's next: Bates, 39, of Ridgeland, Mississippi, is scheduled to be sentenced in March and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to prosecutors.

The big picture: The American Medical Association warned in February that a rise in intimidation, threats and attacks on medical professionals over the past decade had become "even more of an alarming phenomenon since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Fauci, who's stepping down as National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director this month, had his security stepped up in 2020 due to threats.
In August, a West Virginia man who threatened to kill to the 81-year-old Fauci was sentenced to over three years in prison.

Go deeper: 1 in 5 Americans OK with threatening health officials

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Man who threatened to kill CDC chief Rochelle Walensky pleads guilty

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