Man charged with threatening Obama

Published 11:00 pm Wednesday, April 9, 2014

A Suffolk man has been remanded to the Bureau of Federal Prisons for psychiatric evaluation and has been indicted by a federal grand jury for making death threats against President Obama and former First Lady Hillary Clinton.

David Gil Wilkinson, 43, retired Special Forces Navy Chief, faces 10 years in prison if convicted, according to Dana J. Boente, acting U.S. District Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

According to an affidavit filed March 27 in federal court, Wilkinson was stopped by sheriff’s deputies in Southampton County on March 21 after he called 911 and stated that “he was an FBI agent and had run out of fuel on Highway 58.”

Email newsletter signup

The Southampton County Sheriff’s Office “had numerous reports that day of a vehicle matching Wilkinson’s description being driven at speeds over 100 mph,” according to the affidavit.

Deputies arriving on the scene questioned Wilkinson, who stated, according to court documents, that “he worked for important people, had just left Seal Team 6 and was going to personally throw out Obama and execute him and Hillary.”

Searching Wilkinson’s vehicle, deputies found $12,100 in cash, along with marijuana, drug paraphernalia, prescription medication and an empty pistol box. Further investigation revealed that the vehicle had been involved earlier in a hit-and-run accident in Suffolk.

When officers took Wilkinson into custody, he “brought the handcuffs from his back to his front and further broke the handle on the door to his holding room in order to prevent deputies from keeping him inside while awaiting transport to the hospital for an evaluation.”

The deputies had been wearing body cameras that recorded audio and video, and court documents reveal a decidedly disturbed suspect.

“But I tell you what, politics is my game now, brother. I wanna run for president, and I gotta lotta SEALS behind me,” the affidavit quotes him as saying. “I’m throwing his a– out, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna personally execute him and Hillary.”

The exchange deteriorated even further, according to court documents, which quoted Wilkinson as saying: “Oh, under the name of Jesus, under the law, brother. Under the law, You keep that, tell it to your family in about six months that you already heard it, OK. There is s— going, brother, he f—– over SEAL Team 6 and killed my m—– f—— brothers and he will f—— pay.”

According to the affidavit, Wilkinson told federal investigators on March 23 that he suffered from a traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression as a result of his military service. He also claimed to have two weapons — a 9mm SIG and a .357 pistol with laser sight — locked away in his wife’s possession.

The documents state that Wilkinson said he “felt the president was treating the Navy SEALS poorly” and that the president “was responsible for the loss of 30 of his fellow crewmen’s lives” and had covered up their deaths.

The latter statement was an apparent reference to the 30 U.S. Navy SEALS who died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in August 2011. Some of the surviving family members claimed in a press conference last year that SEAL Team 6 had been targeted by the Taliban after the president revealed that the special-forces unit had conducted the raid in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

After a 72-hour emergency commitment order expired, Wilkinson was released from the Pavilion Behavioral Health Center in Williamsburg on March 24.

According to the affidavit, U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Brian E. Stallings received a call on March 25 from a Henrico County Police officer, who had stopped Wilkinson that afternoon on I-295 near the Staples Mill Road exit after observing him traveling at 100 mph on the highway.

Wilkinson had called Henrico communications at about 4:40 p.m. that day and “continued to update Henrico communications, along with making statements such as President Obama being out and that people needed to die, and he was part of a group that would take back America,” the court documents allege.

Wilkinson was apprehended, and police obtained another emergency commitment order for him. He was taken to Henrico Doctor’s Hospital-Parham for evaluation.

The following day, another Secret Service agent interviewed one of Wilkinson’s family members in Richmond and was told that the suspect had contacted his estranged wife from inside the hospital and asked her to bring him a handgun.

A federal grand jury issued an indictment against Wilkinson on Wednesday on charges of threatening the president and the former first lady.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Tommy Miller issued his psychiatric order on Tuesday, calling for Wilkinson to be examined to determine whether Wilkinson suffers from a mental disease or defect that would render him mentally incompetent for trial or legally insane at the time of the commission of the alleged offenses.