Bruce Shore pleaded guilty on Friday to sending threatening email to Sen. Jim Bunning over the Kentucky Republican's February filibuster of extended unemployment benefits, and for the first time the government revealed its evidence against Shore.
If Bunning continued to obstruct a reauthorization of extended benefits, Shore wrote, "I AM GOING TO COME TO YOUR OFFICE AND I WILL TAKE THE LOUSY 387 OUT OF YOUR HIDE....YOU WILL SUFFER A SLOW .......D......TH."
At the time of his indictment in May, Shore, who is unemployed and lives with his mother in Philadelphia, told HuffPost he didn't know what, exactly, he was in trouble for. He shared one email that didn't seem extremely threatening, but he said he didn't have copies of other messages he'd sent via Bunning's website. The one-page indictment said only that Shore "did utilize a telecommunications device, that is a computer, whether or not communication ensued, without disclosing his identity and with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, and harass any person who received the communication."
In a frantic Feb. 26 email entered as evidence by the government, Shore created a fake persona for himself, pretending the loss of benefits caused by Bunning's obstruction had jeopardized his health and his family.
"MY 2 CHILDREN WILL NOT HAVE FOOD AND CAN SURVIVE ONLY - O N L Y WITH THE EXTENDED BENEFITS WHICH YOU STOPPED FUNDING FOR ON 2/25 AND 2/26. WITHOUT THE EXTENSION - I LOOSE MY HEALTH CARE COVERAGE AND THAT MEANS NO - NO TREATMENT - MEANING THE CANCER WILL KILL ME," he wrote. "YOU ARE FUKKING WITH MY LIFE - FUKING WITH MY KIDS AND I U WILL SEE JESUS..."
Shore told HuffPost in May that he made up a story and pretended to be from Kentucky because he figured Bunning's office would ignore email from out-of-state. "Why would he even care if a guy from Philadelphia gets upset?"
Bunning's office declined to comment at the time but said several threatening emails had been forwarded to the Capitol Police as a matter of course. The FBI followed up with Shore, and a Kentucky grand jury indicted him in May.
"In the e-mail, the defendant disguised his e-mail address, created a fictitious name and address, and invented details about the supposed sender 'Dr. Richard Durbanny,' including having terminal cancer and having moved to Kentucky due to his employer relocating to China," the government stated in its guilty plea memorandum.
It's not Shore's first scrape with the law: In 1995, he and his then-girlfriend pleaded guilty to committing 35 burglaries as what the Philadelphia Daily News called a "Bonnie & Clyde" team.
Shore's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost. Shore will be sentenced on Dec. 13. He faces up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
CLICK HERE to download a PDF of a threatening email from Shore, and CLICK HERE to read the government's guilty plea memorandum.