Florida Republican William Robert Braddock III is charged with making death threats against former primary rival Anna Paulina Luna

The Justice Department has charged a former Florida congressional candidate for threatening to call in his “Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” to kill his 2021 Republican primary opponent.

According to the indictment, William Robert Braddock III repeatedly promised to harm and kill the current representative. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), identified as Victim 1, and another person present, known as Victim 2, during a telephone conversation. Victim 2 is described as a “private person” and “acquaintance” of Luna.

Braddock left the United States shortly after the allegedly threatening conversation and was eventually found and arrested in the Philippines in 2023. He was deported from the Southeast Asian country before making his first court appearance in Los Angeles on September 27.

On Thursday, he was charged with interstate communication of a genuine threat to harm another person, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The current investigation into Braddock is a joint effort between the FBI and St. Petersburg Police as part of the department's Election Threats Task Force.

Luna and Braddock both ran in the 2021 Republican primary in Florida's 13th Congressional District. She won the seat and was endorsed by Donald Trump.

This year, Luna accused Braddock of stalking her and threatening to kill her while he filed for a restraining order. She and a conservative activist friend, Erin Olszewski, were previously granted a restraining order against the one-time congressional candidate after threatening allegations first surfaced.

During a conversation recorded by Olszewski, Braddock is heard telling her not to support Luna because he has access to assassins.

“I really don’t want to have to end anyone’s life for the sake of the people of the United States of America,” he said in the tape, obtained by Politico. “This will break my heart. But if it has to be done, it has to be done. Luna is a damn speed bump in the road. She’s a dead squirrel that you run over every day when you leave the neighborhood.”

Braddock refused to discuss the call with the station, saying he had not heard the recording and suggesting that the recording “might even be changed and edited.”

Ultimately, however, Luna was denied a permanent restraining order against her then-political rival.

Aside from the ongoing case against Braddock, the congresswoman, who is running for re-election in the district, recently claimed that her office received a “very serious shooting threat.”

“This campaign of division and hate against Republicans will get someone killed,” she posted on We Will Win on September 18.”

Luna, a staunch Trump ally, also claimed that she was doxxed at her Florida home and received threatening packages after her Democratic opponent called her a “threat to democracy.”