FILE: Salt Lake Comic Con co-founder Bryan Brandenburg speaks during the Salt Lake Comic Con kick off press conference at the Salt Palace Convention Center, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014. Photo credit: Michelle Tessier
SALT LAKE CITY — The co-founder of the FanX Convention is in police custody in Hawaii and facing federal charges related to making bomb threats toward targets in Utah.
Police say that Bryan Melvin Brandenburg made threats against several locations in Utah, including a bomb threat against the University of Utah on May 6 (which turned out to be a hoax.)
FBI agents in Hawaii, where Brandenburg lives, reportedly traced the threats to some of Brandenburg’s emails.
The situation began with Brandenburg corresponding about his pending divorce via email with an employee of Utah’s 3rd District Court.
Arrest records say Brandenburg used an expletive telling the employee, “I want an (expletive) divorce in Utah.”
And after the employee told him that kind of language wouldn’t be tolerated, Brandenburg started making threats according to charging documents.
The threats began on May 4, 2022, when the FBI said Brandenburg “sent emails to people in Utah threatening to bomb the 3rd District Courthouse, the State Capitol, the Mayor’s office, every Ivy League School, and the Federal Courthouse in San Diego.”
Then, on May 6, 2022, the FBI said Brandenburg sent emails from Hawaii to people in Utah threatening to “bomb hall labs and the University of Utah Center for Medical Innovation.”
The Deseret News reports that Brandenburg was arrested at his home in Hawaii on Monday.
Brandenburg appeared in court on Tuesday in Hawaii. He is facing two federal charges of transmitting threats in interstate commerce and threatening and conveying false information concerning use of an explosive.
If convicted, he faces 10 years to life in prison.
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