Man losing home to foreclosure threatens to ‘open fire on’ Utah officials, feds say
A man accused of repeatedly threatening officials in Utah over the foreclosure of his home, including saying he’d “open fire” on and “spit hot lead” at people who showed up to evict him, will spend five years behind bars, federal prosecutors said.
Ryan Gregory Bracken, 44, of West Valley City, also was sentenced to three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah said in a Jan. 15 news release.
Bracken represented himself in court.
In a phone call from behind bars on Jan. 23, Bracken told McClatchy News that he was wrongfully prosecuted and convicted in “sham legal proceedings.”
Bracken had been convicted of making a series of threats between March 20 and April 2, 2024, over the foreclosure of his home. He called Salt Lake County government offices 37 times during that two-week period, with 29 of the calls happening April 1-2, prosecutors said.
In one voicemail left for a county recorder’s office employee, Bracken said the employee and the department’s leader “were guilty of treason and made a point of stating that the penalty for treason is death,” according to a court filing.
The message scared the employee, who reported that Bracken’s “behavior was ‘becoming increasingly verbally abusive and threatening” over multiple phone calls, the filing said.
In one phone call to the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Bracken threatened to hold the sheriff “responsible for treasonous acts” and said she’ll “swing from a rope” if a sheriff’s sale of his home went through, the filing said.
Later in the call, Bracken said he’d “open fire on” officials who showed up to serve eviction notices, the court filing said. “I will spit hot lead, 7.62 at their (expletive) faces. And I am a crack shot,” he said during the call, according to the filing.
In the news release, U.S. Attorney Trina A. Higgins described Bracken’s actions as “extreme, unabated, and dangerous.”
Bracken was found guilty in October on four counts of stalking and one count of interstate communication of threats.
This story was originally published January 16, 2025 at 3:11 PM with the headline "Man losing home to foreclosure threatens to ‘open fire on’ Utah officials, feds say."
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