Robert Ferrin warned that the attack on the New York City Pride Parade would make the Pulse nightclub shooting "look like a piece of cake", the authorities said.

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On Monday, a Long Island man was accused of threatening violence against LGBTQ groups and leaders in dozens of hateful letters, including a warning that a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida “looks like a piece of cake. dish".

According to federal criminal proceedings, 74-year-old Robert Fehring (Robert Fehring) is from Bayport, New York. Starting in 2013, he sent these letters over a period of eight years. According to a federal criminal suit, he was charged Threats via US mail.

The complaint alleges that FBI agents searched his home last month and found two loaded shotguns, hundreds of bullets, two stun guns, a machete with a U.S. flag pattern, and a piece named "Underground Construction". DVD of your own silencer system".

According to the complaint, investigators also found a stamped envelope addressed to a lawyer who had handled LGBTQ-related cases. Inside is the remains of a dead bird.

"The hateful verbal and violent threats against members of the LGBTQ+ community by the defendants have no place in our society," Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Bren Heping said in a statement announcing these allegations.

Mr. Fehring’s lawyer Glenn Obedin said in a statement that his client “respects the legal process and requests that it be allowed to exercise its proper and lawful conclusions on its own.”

David Kilmnick, president of the LGBT Network in New York, runs four community centers in Long Island and Queens, and hosts the annual Long Island Pride event. He said that he had complicated issues with Mr. Ferrin’s arrest. feel.

Most of the letters sent by Mr. Fehring were sent to Mr. Kilmnick, his group, and other LGBTQ organizations and leaders on Long Island.

Mr. Kilmnik said he was happy that someone was finally accused of making threats. But he also expressed disappointment that the Suffolk County police in New York failed to arrest some of these letters early.

"In the past eight years, we have no reason to have to endure this kind of fear and anxiety," Mr. Kimnik said.

In a statement, the Suffolk County Police Department stated that its hate crimes department will investigate every report it receives.

The statement stated that its investigation of the threats attributed by federal authorities to Mr. Fehring "has become part of a larger FBI investigation that our department is fully cooperating with." The department submits all other questions to the FBI

A FBI spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday: "We thank the partners of the Suffolk County Police Department for their full cooperation in this investigation."

Also on Tuesday, Suffolk County Police charged Mr. Fehring with criminal mischief and gross theft, which were hate crimes related to the theft of the pride flag on the roadside of Seville in July. The federal complaint alleges that investigators found 20 such flags while searching his home.

Mr. Kimnik did not applaud the new allegations.

"Frankly, it insults and despises our lives and all the direct and personal threats they have fully realized for eight years," he said.

According to the federal complaint, investigators identified at least 60 letters from Mr. Fehring, postmarked from June 2013 to September this year, in which he said he would use guns and explosives to attack LGBTQ groups and people. The complaint alleges that copies of some of the letters were found when the FBI searched his home.

The complaint stated that a letter written on May 20 to the executive director of an organization involved in planning LGBTQ events warned of a major attack on the Pride Parade in New York City in March this year.

According to the complaint, Fehlin said in the letter that "we" will use radio control equipment in "many strategic locations and launch firepower at you from other strategic locations."

The complaint stated that he wrote: “This will make the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 look like a piece of cake.” In June 2016, Omar Martin shot and killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Mr. Kilmnik said that the first threat letter sent to his team in 2013 warned that violence would appear pale and weak compared to the Boston Marathon bombing.

According to the complaint, Mr. Fehring is accused of sending other letters including a letter threatening to shoot high-powered rifles at the Long Island Pride event in June this year; another warned members of the local chamber of commerce that if the organization allows LGBTQ activities to continue, they will need ambulance The car; another third described the Brooklyn Barbershop as "the perfect target for bombing."

If convicted, Mr. Fehring will face up to five years in prison. Mr. Fehring is recognized by Newsday as a retired high school teacher, band director and track coach.

Court records show that in 2010, after an off-duty police officer saw him hiding a shotgun under a raincoat and taking it into the Long Island office building, he filed a lawsuit against the Suffolk County Police, but it was unsuccessful.

Officials said that after his first appearance in the Federal District Court in Central Islip on Monday, he was released on bail of $100,000, confined to home detention, and ordered to wear surveillance equipment.

Given the nature of Fehring's alleged threats and the weapons seized from his home, Mr. Kilmnick expressed indignation at Mr. Fehring's release.

"This person should not be released on bail," Mr. Kimnick said.