By Steve Neavling
A California man was convicted of two felony counts Wednesday after sending a series of threatening emails to the FBI, including one in which he referenced the Unabomber and threatened to bomb the bureau’s Los Angeles Field Office.
A jury found Mark William Anten, 52, guilty of two federal counts of threats by interstate communication, a crime that carries a maximum of five years in prison on each count.
During the three-day trial, prosecutors said Anten sent a series of increasingly threatening emails to the bureau between July 2023 and November 2023.
“Even after being warned, Mr. Anten double-downed on his threats to murder FBI employees,” Krysti Hawkins, the acting assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said in a statement. “The FBI will not tolerate credible death threats to individuals or institutions and, as evidenced during the trial, neither did the jury.”
In one of the emails, Anten bragged that he was voted most likely in his graduating class to become the next Unabomber, a reference to Theodore John Kaczynski, whose 20-year bombing spree killed three people and injured nearly dozen more. Anten also said he was working on his own manifesto.
On Dec. 5, Anten threatened to “Unabomb” the field office in Westwood. The next day, he wrote, “I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would be very explainable by your actions.”
Anten signed the emails “SuperMax” and “Death.”
Anten also was spotted at the field office in December. In a follow-up email, he pledged to continue visiting the office.
He was arrested several weeks later.
Anten is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 13.
