Alleged Obama Threatener Reportedly Called Palm Beach Post More Than 1,000 Times

By Matthew Hendley Thu., Jul. 7 2011 at 11:33 AM

Categories: Crime, Media

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Multnomah County Sheriff's Office

Darryl James Swanson

Darryl James Swanson -- the Oregon man arrested for allegedly threatening President Barack Obama in a series of phone calls to the U.S. attorney's offices in Portland and Seattle, as well as the Palm Beach County Commissioner's Office -- also enjoyed calling a local newspaper quite often.

The Palm Beach Post reports that Swanson called its office more than 1,000 times between April and late June.

He would leave more than 100 voice-mail messages on an answering machine some nights, and if a person picked up the phone, he would say he preferred talking to the answering machine and would hang up, the paper says.

The Post says Swanson was "leaving rambling messages about car transmissions, burning Catholics and contacting Al-Qaeda for machine guns to assassinate the president."

This news comes after federal prosecutors say the 45-year-old Portland resident allegedly left 44 voice-mail messages with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Portland and three voice mails each to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle and the Palm Beach County Commissioner's Office.

One voice-mail message to the Seattle bureau of the Associated Press included Swanson saying, "I may have to get in touch with al Qaeda and get ahold of at least one, possibly two good working machine guns and blast my way into the White House," the AP says.

The only tie to Palm Beach County we've found for Swanson includes him being ordered by a Palm Beach County judge to undergo a mental evaluation in December 1996 under the Baker Act, according to the Palm Beach County Clerk's Office.

There's no further criminal history in the county for Swanson, but the Post now says that Swanson's father was fired from his job with the county more than a decade ago.

A Palm Beach County security supervisor told the paper the county commission has been getting calls for "at least 10 years."

When the Secret Service finally got around to interviewing Swanson, they realized something was a little nutty, according to the AP:

The day after the call to the AP, Swanson told Secret Service agent Ronald Brown that he made the call because he was frustrated that the president has not sent him a check for $70 million, which he claims he is owed from a trust fund set up at his birth, court documents show. Brown told him that no trust fund exists.

Swanson was ordered by a judge Tuesday to undergo a mental evaluation, and his arraignment is currently scheduled for next month.

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