A man was charged with making graphic threats to Fauci, warning he would soon be 'hunted, tortured, beaten, [and] enslaved'

• A man faces felony charges after making violent threats to infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci.
• Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., was accused of sending graphic insults and death threats to Fauci's email from December 2020 to July 2021.
• Connally appeared to be disgruntled regarding Fauci's guidance on getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

A man faces felony charges after he emailed graphic insults and death threats to top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in a federal court in Maryland.

Thomas Patrick Connally, Jr., was accused of sending multiple violent threats to Fauci's National Institutes of Health email from late December of last year until late July of 2021.

Connally called Fauci, who serves as the current Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a "lying sack of s---" and "a sickening, compromised satanic freemason criminal," citing the complaint.

Connally appeared to be disgruntled regarding Fauci's guidance on getting the COVID-19 vaccine. One email from late April read that Fauci and his wife "will have the teeth smashed out of its worthless k--- skull if you say ONE MORE WORD about 'mandatory vaccines.'"

Fauci had previously expressed support for mandating vaccines at a local level, including at schools and businesses.

"I do believe at the local level there should be more mandates," Fauci said on CNN's "State of the Union" earlier this month. "We're talking about life-and-death situation. We've lost 600,000 Americans already, and we're still losing more people. There've been 4 million deaths worldwide, so I am in favor of that."

Some emails threatened the lives of Fauci and his family, with one message from late April reading that they will "be dragged into the street, beaten to death, and set on fire," according to screenshots included in the documents.

Special Agent Brett D. Rowland, who works with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), filed the affidavit on Tuesday, charging Connally with making threats against a federal official and interstate communications containing a threat to harm.

Investigators with the HHS began "protective operations" around Fauci in March of last year when he became the point person for guidance amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

"Part of those protective operations involve the vetting of threats received by various means, including mail, voicemail, and emails," Rowland wrote in the criminal complaint. The operations led to the probe of threatening emails allegedly sent by Connally.

Attorney information for Connally was not immediately available and he could not be reached for comment. Representatives for the HHS did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.