Michigan man accused of threatening to kill Jewish politicians incompetent, judge says

DETROIT — A man from the Adrian area accused of threatening to kill Attorney General Dana Nessel and other Jewish members of state government is incompetent to stand trial, a federal judge said Friday.

Tipton resident Jack Eugene Carpenter III, 42, is a delusional conspiracy theorist, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith wrote in an order, noting Carpenter believes he is being targeted by the government and others for his COVID-19 beliefs.

Those beliefs include thinking that the biopharmaceutical company Pfizer is a nation state with military bases associated or controlled by the Israeli government and that the vaccine is being used as a biological weapon.

"These exceedingly implausible beliefs are not incidental or marginal in his life," the judge wrote. "They dominate his thinking."

The judge's order means Carpenter, a former IT specialist at the University of Michigan who lost his job for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, will not stand trial, at least in the short term, in one of the latest federal criminal cases in Michigan involving extremism and antigovernment views.

Carpenter will undergo treatment for as long as four months to determine if he can become competent. If there is a substantial probability that he can become competent, treatment can continue for a “reasonable period of time,” until he regains competence or charges are dismissed, according to the Justice Department.

"The sense of grandiosity and persecution reflective in Carpenter’s views separates him from others who hold conspiratorial views about COVID-19," the judge wrote. "Many have questioned the origins of the disease and the motivations of governments and pharmaceutical companies in responding to it. But it is the grandiosity and persecution complex that transforms Carpenter from a conspiracy theorist without mental health challenges into a deluded one."

The order was filed 15 months after federal agents charged Carpenter after becoming alerted to the man's social media posts.

FBI agents say they found threats on his Twitter account to "carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is jewish (sic) in the Michigan" government, according to the unsealed criminal case. The threats were sent through his still-active X account, @tempered_reason, prosecutors allege.

Carpenter is charged with transmitting an interstate threat, a crime that carries a maximum five-year federal prison sentence.

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