Death threats, Net rant hound Bronx Board of Elections official
Wednesday, July 16th 2008, 11:20 PM
The Bronx district attorney's subpoena to identify an anonymous poster on a political blog is part of an active criminal probe of death threats against an official at the Bronx Board of Elections, the Daily News has learned.
"What is funny is when your children, your kids are all killed kidnaped raped and dismemberedr [sic]," read one of the poorly written letters sent over two years to Dawn Sandow, a deputy chief in the office.
"We will not stop blogging you and harassing until you leave that buildoing or resign [sic]," it said. "Do it before you are in Ruggieros funeral viewin [sic] your kids bodies."
Bronx GOP Chairman Jay Savino said the letters and a long series of obscene, threatening phone calls to people connected to him have been laced with references supporting predecessor Guy Velella, who was jailed in 2004 for taking bribes.
The first of at least nine letters to Sandow was sent in August 2006, a month after an anonymous caller began harassing the Bronx GOP headquarters with obscene and threatening calls, Savino said.
Sources said Bronx DA Robert Johnson's office is focusing on an anonymous writer who posted anti-Savino rants on Room Eight, a local political blog. Johnson issued subpoenas this year to try to identify a poster called "Republican Dissident," without saying why.
In a commentary in Tuesday's News, Room Eight's founders said they tried to quash the subpoenas, fearing Johnson could be using a grand jury to go after his political critics. The subpoenas were later withdrawn.
"The subpoenas had nothing to do with any critics of this office or of any elected official," Johnson's spokesman Steve Reed said in a statement Wednesday.
Velella said he has nothing to do with any threats targeting Savino or his allies. "I'm out of politics," he said. "I don't have anything to do with the Board of Elections."
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