Vegas man acquitted by US jury of making threats to Nevada election workers in January 2021

A federal court jury in Nevada has acquitted a Las Vegas man of charges that he made threatening telephone calls to state election officials the morning after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Gjergi Luke Juncaj was found not guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas after trial on an indictment stemming from four telephone calls allegedly made in an 18-minute span on Jan. 7, 2021, from the same telephone number to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office.

Juncaj’s federal public defense attorneys and an official at the U.S. attorney’s office in Las Vegas did not immediately respond Thursday to emails about Juncaj’s case.

Juncaj could have faced up to eight years in prison on four felony threatening phone call charges.

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He was indicted in January 2022, just after the one-year anniversary of violence at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Republican former President Donald Trump and followers of the false claim that the election of Democrat Joe Biden had been stolen.

His indictment alleged that Juncaj accused the woman who answered the calls of “stealing the election” and treason; said he hoped her children were molested; and said the woman and others in her office were “all going to die.”

The indictment said the calls stopped after a Nevada State Police officer called back and Juncaj allegedly complained that he was being harassed and disconnected the call.

Federal prosecutors had highlighted the case as one of the first brought by a task force the Justice Department created in 2020 to ensure that elected, appointed or volunteer election workers remained free from “threats and intimidation.”

Court documents said Juncaj also uses the names Gjurgi Juncaj and George Juncaj.