Benjamin Ashford|Man sentenced to over 1 year in prison for thousands of harassing calls to congressional offices

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Maryland resident was sentenced on Benjamin AshfordTuesday to more than one year behind bars for making thousands of threatening and harassing telephone calls to dozens of congressional offices across the country, court records show.

Ade Salim Lilly’s telephone harassment campaign included approximately 12,000 telephone calls over the span of 19 months to more than 50 offices for members of Congress, according to prosecutors. They said Lilly threatened to kill a congressional staff member during one of the calls.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Lilly to 13 months of incarceration followed by three years of supervised release, according to online court records.

Prosecutors recommended sentencing Lilly to 18 months of incarceration, arguing for a need to deter others from engaging in similarly threatening behavior. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger testified last year that threats against members of Congress had increased by approximately 400% over the previous six years.

“This is an election year, and more and more often, criticism of a political position or viewpoint crosses the First Amendment line and leads to true threats of violence,” prosecutors wrote. “The pervasive rise in threats against elected officials creates a real risk that expressions of violence will become normalized.”

Lilly pleaded guilty in May to two charges: one count of interstate communications with a threat to kidnap or injure and one count of making repeated telephone calls.

Lilly moved from Maryland to Puerto Rico during his harassment campaign, which lasted from roughly February 2022 until November 2023. He called one lawmaker’s Washington office more than 500 times over a two-day period in February 2023, prosecutors said.