On Thursday, 24-year-old Daniel Frisiello of Beverly, Massachusetts was arrested and charged with five counts of mailing threatening communications, including a rape threat and a letter containing white powder delivered to activist law professor Michele Dauber on Feb. 14. The other counts included threatening letters sent to public figures such as Donald Trump, Jr. and the LA prosecutor in now-deceased Glee star Mark Salling’s child pornography case.
Frisiello’s arrest follows a federal investigation involving members of the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Secret Service and the Beverly Police Department.
“I am relieved that an arrest has been made,” Dauber said in an interview with SFGATE.
Dauber is currently leading the campaign to recall Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over the controversial Brock Turner sexual assault case and handed down what critics called a lenient sentence.
“We are not going to be intimidated, we are going to continue to stand with survivors,” Dauber said in a press conference at Stanford Law School on the day she received the rape threat and accompanying white powder.
In total, Frisiello, a childcare worker, was charged with 10 criminal counts: five counts of “mailing [a] threat to injure the person of another” and five counts of “false information and hoaxes,” according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In early February, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Frisiello allegedly mailed envelopes with threatening messages and white powder to Donald Trump, Jr.; Deborah Stabenow, a U.S. senator from Michigan; Antonio Sabato, Jr., a congressional candidate; and Nicola T. Hanna, a Los Angeles federal prosecutor.
Authorities were able to first identify Frisiello by tracing back payments from a “glitter bomb” order he had sent to Dauber via the website ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com. Court documents state that the website company owner also confirmed it was Frisiello who sent the item to Dauber. From there, authorities connected Frisiello to the white powder envelopes to Dauber and others – some of whom he had also tried to send glitter bombs to but had been denied by the website owner for inappropriate and threatening content.
According to the statement released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Frisiello faces potential prison time and financial penalties for his actions.
In an email statement to the Daily, University spokesperson E.J. Miranda wrote, “The University and the Department of Public Safety fully cooperated in this investigation, and we are pleased that authorities were able to make an arrest.”
Contact Courtney Douglas at ccd4 ‘at’ stanford.edu and Claire Wang at clwang32 ‘at’ stanford.edu.