PHOENIX – The U.S. Department of Justice District of Arizona on Oct. 22, 2024, announced that Cullman resident Brian Ogstad has been sentenced to prison following threats made on the lives of election officials in Arizona in 2022. Ogstad issued the threats via social media from Cullman.
He was arrested in February 2024 and charged with five counts of making a threatening interstate communication, for which he faced up to five years imprisonment on each charge. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to one of the five charges in July 2024.
The official statement from USDOJ reads:
Brian Jerry Ogstad, 60, of Cullman, Alabama, was sentenced yesterday by United States District Judge Michael T. Liburdi to 30 months in prison, followed by 36 months of supervised release. Judge Liburdi also ordered Ogstad to pay a $1,000 fine. Ogstad pleaded guilty to one count of Making a Threatening Interstate Communication on July 25, 2024.
“In this election season we honor and respect those public servants who enable Americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote,” said United States Attorney Gary Restaino. “And we seek to protect all election workers from intimidation and harassment. Threats of violence, whether conveyed by words or deeds or pictures, will be met in this District with robust prosecution.”
“As Director Wray has said many times, threats of violence toward election workers are also threats to the democratic process and cannot become normalized,” said FBI Phoenix Acting Special Agent in Charge Jarod Brown. “The FBI takes seriously all threats of violence against public officials, and we will continue to assess them and take swift action as necessary.”
On August 2, 2022, Arizona held primary elections for federal and state officeholders, including a gubernatorial primary election that received nationwide media coverage. From the day of the election through August 4, 2022, Ogstad sent multiple threatening messages to an Instagram social media account maintained by Maricopa County Elections. For example, on or about August 3, 2022, Ogstad stated, (1) “You did it! Now you are [expletive]. Dead. You will all be executed for your crimes”; (2) “[expletive] you! You are caught! They have it all. You [expletive] are dead”; (3) “You are lying, cheating [expletive] . . . you better not come in my church, my business or send your kids to my school. You are [expletive] stupid if you think your lives are safe”; and (4) “You [expletive] are so dead.” On or about August 4, 2022, Ogstad further stated, “[Y]ou people are so ducking [sic] stupid. Everyone knows you are lots [sic], cheats, frauds and in doing so in relation to elections have committed treason. You will all be executed. Bang [expletive]!”
The FBI Phoenix Field Office, with substantial assistance from the FBI Birmingham Field Office, conducted the investigation in this case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Sue Feldmeier, District of Arizona, and Trial Attorney Tanya Senanayake of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section handled the prosecution.
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said following Ogstad’s plea in July, “Brian Ogstad repeatedly threatened to kill Maricopa County election workers and officials. As today’s guilty plea demonstrates, the Department is committed to holding accountable those who target election workers and officials with threats of violence. I am especially grateful to the Election Threats Task Force, which continues to spearhead the Department’s efforts to ensure that public servants who administer our elections can do their jobs free from threats and intimidation.”
Ogstad confronted local officials
Ogstad garnered local attention, some supportive and some opposing, for confrontations with the Cullman City Council in 2021, a year before the incidents in Arizona. In February of that year, Ogstad spoke during the public comment section of a meeting and presented members of the council a letter entitled a “Legal Notice of Unlawful Orders of Biden Administration and Treason,” charging President Joe Biden and others with treason and election fraud, and calling on elected officials at lower levels of government–including the local level–not to carry out laws or executive orders of the Biden administration. Ogstad also presented flash drives to the mayor and council members, reported to contain documentation supporting the claims made in the letter.
The presented letter concluded: “As a result of the overwhelming evidence, we can clearly see that the election of Joe Biden was a fraud, and as a result has no lawful power or legitimacy; and therefore no word, order, policy, or instruction from Joe Biden or his representatives has any authority, power, or legitimacy, and should not be accepted or obeyed in any way. To do so would clearly be an act of treason.”
The council accepted the letter and flash drives, but did not respond to Ogstad’s statements.
In August 2021 Ogstad confronted the council at its regular meeting, announcing that he would file lawsuits against Mayor Woody Jacobs, the council, city school board and City COVID-19 advisor Dr. Scott Warner. Ogstad alleged that the City’s COVID-19 policies were improper, and presented the council a written notice demanding a public apology for the City’s policies, a promise of no more use of those policies, public promotion of his own plan for COVID-19 treatment and the refund of money “which the city took from We The People of Cullman during 2020.”
Council President Jenny Folsom informed Ogstad that he had exceeded the allotted time for individuals to speak, and (now former) Police Chief Kenny Culpepper escorted him from the building after he went to the front of the auditorium to deliver his notice and engage in another verbal exchange with the council.
City Clerk Wes Moore told The Tribune on Wednesday, Oct. 23, that Ogstad did not actually file suit against the City.
This is a developing story.
