A Chugiak man has been ordered to undergo a mental health assessment with the Federal Bureau of Prisons as part of his sentencing for Transmitting Threatening Communication in Interstate Commerce, U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder said on Friday.

33-year-old Brandon McElroy, who worked for the Smithsonian Institute at the Arctic Studies Center, pleaded guilty to the charge on December 14th of 2016. He was sentenced last week to five years probation and ordered to undergo mental health and
substance abuse treatment programs. McElroy was “also ordered to not comment about the case, directly or indirectly, on social media,” Shroder reported.

As filming for the Smithsonian Institute of rural Alaska began winding down, an upset McElroy went to the home of his employer in late 2015 after sending threatening emails say that he intended to go to her house to kill her. When he arrived at the residence, he threw some discs that he had brought with him onto the ground, raised a rifle and discharged it into the woods, warning the woman that something bad would happen to her if she called the police, then got back into his vehicle and reversed into a tree before fleeing the  scene.

McElroy was arrested the next day he was charged with Possession of a Weapon with Intent to Assault and other charges and pleaded guilty to that charge in a plea agreement.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]DoJ states that beginning in February 2016, McElroy sent texts to the Smithsonian Institute employee saying, “I very seriously thought about driving to your house and killing you tonight” and in another “This wasn’t going to go away until one of us was dead.”

Even after his guilty plea, McElroy made several social media posts which falsely and intentionally impugned the Smithsonian employee’s integrity and professionalism, Schroder reported.

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