A former nurse in Florida is facing a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to harassing Vice President Kamala Harris with threatening videos.
Admission of guilt: On Friday, 39-year-old Niviane Petit Phelps confessed in Miami federal court to six counts of making threats against Harris, reported Miami Herald.
- The mother of three, who was arrested last April, admitted to applying for a concealed weapons permit and practicing at a gun range, a Secret Service complaint revealed.
- Phelps was caught because she sent her imprisoned husband two photos and five videos of her screaming and ranting over the results of the 2020 election.
- “Kamala Harris, you are going to die,” the defendant said in a video dated Feb.13. “Your days are numbered already.”
- “If I see you in the street, I’m gonna kill your ass, Kamala Harris,” she proclaimed in a Feb. 14 video. In another video, she said, “I’m going to the gun range, just for your ass, until you f—kin’ leave the chair.”
- She claimed she had accepted $53,000 to carry out an assassination against Harris that she planned to complete within 50 days, the Associated Press reported.
- One of the images shows Phelps holding a pistol next to a target peppered with bullet holes. The other photo had Phelps’ teenage son also carrying a gun.
- During the trial, Phelps acknowledged that the prosecutors would successfully convict her beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Brewing hate: After charges were filed against her in April, Phelps was suspended and eventually lost her job at the Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she worked for 20 years as a nurse.
- When authorities questioned Phelps about the two photos and the five threatening videos she sent her husband, she said she “just does not like her,.” referring to Harris.
- Phelps, who is Black, said she made the threats because Harris, of Black and South Asian descent, wasn’t “actually Black.”
- She was also angry at Harris over a false belief that she placed her hand over her purse instead of the Bible when she was sworn in as vice president.
- Phelps’ lawyer, Scott Saul, told Miami Herald that the defendant was just venting to her husband with no plans on following through on her threats.
- “[She] was just venting as she was going through a tumultuous time in her life,” Saul said, noting that the threats were “limited to discussions with her incarcerated husband.”
Found by a judge to be a “danger to the community,” Phelps is currently being detained while awaiting her sentencing before the U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez on Nov. 19.
