The U.S. government will not prosecute former Lafayette resident Nathalie Rose Jones for threats made on social media last month against President Donald Trump.
“I am off home detention, thank God!” Jones posted late Monday on her Facebook page after her morning hearing in Washington D.C.
On Aug. 29, a grand jury declined to indict Jones, 50, currently of New York City, indicating that they did not find probable cause that Jones threatened Trump either in her Aug. 15 and Aug. 16 statements to Secret Service agents or on her social media posts earlier in August, according to Jones’ attorney’s statements in the court record.
Jones’ attorney requested Monday that the criminal case against Jones be dismissed with prejudice, according to court filings. Dismissing the case with prejudice would mean that the government could not refile charges against Jones for the evidence it used for her Aug. 16 arrest.
That request was denied.
The U.S. magistrate instead dismissed Jones’ case without prejudice, which leaves open the door to resurrect the case if additional evidence is found to support the government’s allegations.
“Given the grand jury’s decision, Mr. (sic) Jones should not be forced to live under the threat of later charges and rearrest,” Jones’ attorney wrote in her motion to the court.
“The charges against Ms. Jones were based on interpretations of statements the goverment presented to the grand jury,” according to Jones’ attorney’s argument. “The grand jury rejected that interpretation of the statements and apparently agreed that Ms. Jones’ statements were consistent with her First Amendment rights.”
“Allowing the government the possibility of rebringing charges under these circumstances is prejudicial and unwarranted,” Jones’ attorney wrote.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told The Washington Post in an article about recent grand jury decisions that a grand jury declining to indict a person for threatening the president “is the essence of a politicized jury.”
“Instead of the outrage that should be engendered by a specific threat to kill the president, the grand jury in D.C. refuses to even let the judicial process begin,” the Washington Post quoted Pirro as saying. “Justice should not depend on politics.”
The Post reported that Jones’ case is just one of five cases in which grand jurors have recently refused to indict a person accused by the government, which includes a case against the man who hurled a sandwich at federal agents.
Jones’ social media posts on several platforms caught the attention of federal agents. In the post, she called for Trump to be arrested, hauled out from the White House and called for other harm to the president.
U.S. Secret Service agents arrested Jones on Aug. 16 after she participated in a protest in Washington D.C.
The day before, agents spoke with Jones in New York City, and agents alleged she called Trump a Nazi and a terrorist.
Jones told agents if she had the opportunity, she would take the president’s life and would kill him at “the compound,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office news release.
Jones was released from federal custody the morning of Aug. 27, and she was ordered to return to New York that day and see her psychiatrist before 5 p.m.
Jones acknowledged in a Facebook video she posted in 2021 that she is schizophrenic.
“Whatever this disease is I have, it’s fine,” she said on the 4-year-old video. “I’m not going to hurt anybody.”
A U.S. magistrate put Jones on home detention on Aug. 27, but the magistrate released her from the monitoring after Monday’s hearing, according to court documents.
Jones was raised in Rensselaer and graduated from Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities on the Ball State University campus in Muncie, according to her website. After high school, she briefly attended Indiana University but quit. She joined the Army Reserves.
Jones then attended Purdue University, where she graduated in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy, according to Purdue.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Charges of threatening President Trump dismissed against former Lafayette woman, Purdue grad
Reporting by Ron Wilkins, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
