NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A man from Queens pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a Congressional staff member and making over 12,000 harassing phone calls to Congress members, the Department of Justice announced on Friday.
Ade Salim Lilly, 35, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court to interstate communications with a threat to kidnap or injure, and making repeated telephone calls.
According to court documents, starting in February 2022 until his arrest in Puerto Rico in November 2023, Lilly made over 12,000 phone calls to nearly 54 offices of members of Congress across the nation, both in district offices located in various U.S. states and in offices located in Washington, D.C.
The calls were mostly answered by congressional staff members or interns, and in some of them, Lilly “would become angry and use vulgar and harassing language towards the individual who answered the phone,” according to prosecutors. Staff repeatedly told Lilly to stop calling and warned him that the calls due their nature of harrasign were against the law.
More than 6,000 of these calls were made to offices within Washington, D.C., and records show he placed these calls while he was in Maryland or Puerto Rico. Staff repeatedly told Lilly to stop calling and warned him that the harassing nature of his calls was against the law.
To avoid detection and to trick congressional staff into answering his phone calls, Lilly used *67 to mask his phone number, according to court documents.
Lilly made at least one phone call to a congressional office in Washington, D.C., where he threatened to kill or injure the staff member who answered on October 21, 2022.
He said, “I will kill you, I am going to run you over, I will kill you with a bomb or grenade,” according to court documents.
“The Government has uncovered no evidence that the defendant actually planned to carry out the threats by killing or injuring the threatened person,” the court document read.
In addition to the threatening phone call, staff at several congressional offices stopped answering their phones once they realized Lilly was targeting them. Lilly would continue to call constantly. For example, between Feb. 27 and Feb. 28, 2023, Lilly called the D.C. office of one congressional representative over 500 times.
Lilly was arrested on Nov. 14, 2023, in Puerto Rico.
The threat charge carries a maximum sentence of five years of imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. The count of repeated phone calls carries a maximum of two years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
“Threatening another person’s safety or life is a crime, not protected speech,” Graves said. “This case should send a clear message that while people are secure in their rights to express themselves, they are not allowed to threaten people and those who do will be held accountable.”
Lilly’s is scheduled for sentencing on Aug. 28.