A 38-year-old New Jersey man has been arrested for allegedly threatening to murder a Florida county sheriff in an anonymous online death threat over the officer's recent stand against a neo-Nazi hate group, officials say.
Richard Golden, of Monmouth Junction, was taken into custody at his mother's house without incident by South Brunswick police Monday, according to Volusia Sheriff Mike Chitwood. He is expected to be extradited to that county, nearly 1,000 miles away from his bedroom, to face a charge of making a written threat to kill or cause injury.
Chitwood says he can't wait to meet him when he gets off the plane.
"One of the first faces he’s going to see welcoming him to the Volusia County Jail, the happiest place on earth, is going to be me," the sheriff said in announcing the arrest Tuesday.
Chitwood again denounced hateful and violent rhetoric circulating in online fringe groups during that briefing. It was his response to recent hate activity in Volusia County that promoted the anonymous threat in the first place.
According to the investigation, the threat was posted in a 4chan chat on Feb. 22. Users had been discussing Chitwood's response in the community and one user, later identified as Golden, suggested someone, "Just shoot Chitwood in the head and he stops being a problem. They have to find a new guy to be the problem."
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"But shooting Chitwood in the head solves an immediate problem permanently. Just shoot Chitwood in the head and murder him," the post continued.
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The information was flagged by the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange (CFIX), launching a joint investigation that ultimately identified Golden, who was living in his mother’s home in Monmouth Junction.
When contacted by members of an FBI task force and South Brunswick Police Department officers, Golden’s mother indicated her son stays in his room and is always on the Internet, according to Chitwood. She said he doesn’t work, rarely leaves the house, and is hostile toward law enforcement and the government, the sheriff added.
It's not the first time he has been targeted. Nazi sympathizers and hate group supporters have made several unsuccessful attempts at intimidating Chitwood and his family, including a failed “swatting” of the sheriff’s parents’ home and harassing one of his daughters, the sheriff's office wrote in a Facebook post.
Golden was transported to the Middlesex County Corrections Center pending extradition to Volusia County. Attorney information for him wasn't immediately available Wednesday and a transport date wasn't clear either.
Chitwood thanked the law enforcement partners involved in making the arrest, including South Brunswick PD, the FBI, CFIX, State Attorney R.J. Larizza and the Middlesex County, NJ, Prosecutors Office.
South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka said 974 miles isn't too much distance to get caught.
“The anonymous nature of the internet may make people feel they can say anything, but if you make threats or put people in fear we will use all our resources to track you down,” Hayducka said in his own announcement of the arrest.
