{"id":236717,"date":"2025-09-18T16:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T16:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/236717\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T16:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T16:01:12","slug":"texas-man-accused-of-threatening-nyc-mayoral-candidate-zohran-mamdani-queens-da-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/236717\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas man accused of threatening NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, Queens DA says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas man is accused of making terroristic threats against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, the Queens district attorney’s office announced Thursday.<\/p>\n

Authorities say 44-year-old Jeremy Fistel, of Plano, Texas, made multiple threats against the Queens assemblyman, in the form of voicemails and a written message between June and July of this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fistel was arrested on Sept. 11 in Texas and was arraigned on a 22-count indictment Thursday morning at Queens Criminal Court. He pleaded not guilty to several charges, including four counts of making a terroristic threat as a hate crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“As alleged, the defendant threatened an elected official by leaving a series of increasingly alarming anti-Muslim messages with the office of Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. The defendant told the assemblyman to go back to Uganda before someone shoots him in the head, to keep an eye on his house and family, to watch his back every second until he leaves America, and that he and his relatives deserve to die,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement. “Let me be very clear – we take threats of violence against any office holder extremely seriously – and there is no room for hate or bigotry in our political discourse.”<\/p>\n

If convicted of the most serious charges, Fistel could face up to 60 years in prison. He was released on bail and is due back in court on Nov. 19.<\/p>\n

\"NYC<\/p>\n

New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks as he joins striking members of the Teamsters Local 210 outside of the Perrigo Company on September 15, 2025 in New York City.<\/p>\n

Michael M. Santiago \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Mamdani is the Democratic nominee<\/a> and frontrunner in the race, polling ahead of<\/a> incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, he picked up an endorsement from Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie<\/a>, following another key endorsement from Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a> over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adams was asked to comment on the alleged threats during an unrelated event Thursday morning, and he told reporters “there’s almost a level of irony to this.”<\/p>\n

“Here you have a person who has spent his life bashing the NYPD, the desire to defund, the desire to say which assignment they’re not on,” Adams said. “We heard about this, and they requested police detail. He has a full detail that’s moving with him, because they were concerned about his life.”<\/p>\n

The alleged threats come amid heightened tensions nationwide<\/a> after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk<\/a>, and come as world leaders are gathering in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani, a democratic socialist who won a stunning victory in the Democratic primary<\/a> to become the party’s nominee, has drawn national attention for his proposals involving free buses, city-run grocery stores and his call for a millionaire’s tax to pay for them. President Trump has weighed in on Mamdani’s candidacy<\/a>, calling him a “communist,” and recently suggested the federal government may withhold money from New York City should he be elected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Check back soon for the latest updates on this developing story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Renee Anderson<\/a><\/p>\n

Renee Anderson is a digital producer at CBS New York, where she covers breaking news and other local stories. Before joining the team in 2016, Renee worked at WMUR-TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas man is accused of making terroristic threats against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":208896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5257,4413,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-236717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-nypd","16":"tag-queens","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115226141536609595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}