DOCUMENT: Crime

Man Held In Obama Death Threat

Federal agents find weapons cache in Floridian's car, hotel room

Raymond Geisel

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Man Held In Obama Death Threat

AUGUST 7--A Florida man is facing federal charges for allegedly threatening the life of Senator Barack Obama.

According to a criminal complaint, Raymond Geisel made the threats while attending a recent bail bondsman training course in Miami. During that course, Geisel allegedly told another attendee, "That nigger, if he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself." Another attendee told investigators that Geisel, 22, also said that he wanted to put a bullet in President George W. Bush's head.

Confronted by federal agents, Geisel, pictured in the mug shot at left, denied threatening Obama, but said that if he wanted to kill the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, "he would simply shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking," according a U.S. District Court affidavit.

A copy of that document, sworn out by Secret Service Agent Paul Adie, can be found here.

Searches of Geisel's car and hotel room turned up a loaded 9mm handgun, military fatigue uniforms, a machete, armor-piercing bullets, body armor, batons, a stun gun, assorted knives, and tear gas canisters. (5 pages)