Expat pleads guilty for Tillis death threats
53-year-old Eric Charles Welton made the threats as an expat living in Thailand
An American living in Thailand has pleaded guilty to making death threats against Republican NC Sen. Thom Tillis.
Via the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of North Carolina on April 10:
WILMINGTON, N.C. – An American citizen living in Thailand pleaded guilty Wednesday to threatening to kill United States Senator Thom Tillis and his staff. Eric Charles Welton, 53, pled guilty to one count of threatening a federal official on account of his duties.
According to court documents and information presented in court, Welton made multiple harassing and intimidating calls to the offices of Republican elected officials and GOP organizations in the United States. Welton claimed he made the threatening calls because he was angry about the large number of unsolicited political emails he received.In September of 2021, Welton spoke with a staff member at the Senator’s Raleigh office and threatened to show up and “put a bullet through each of [their] heads.” Welton also threatened to come to North Carolina and “mow…down” the “whole [expletive] state,” and find the person who emailed him and cut off his hands.
The affidavit quotes Welton as saying, “Maybe I gotta go down there to 310 New Bern Avenue and just kill everybody I see … What I hear is I should fly back over there, walk into 310 New Bern Avenue and teach you what ‘Stand my Ground’ means, put a bullet through each of your heads.”
The press release doesn’t mention it, but Welton also threatened former NC Sen. Richard Burr.
Per the press release, Welton faces sentencing in July.
This pleading comes after Tillis released voicemails of violent threats made to his offices. Read more about those threats:
More To The Story
A lot of the Welton case files were sealed and not available to view on PACER.
These are the documents I was able to access but they are shortened and have redactions:
The sentencing document, written by Welton’s attorney, is meant to be sympathetic, but reads more like a conspiracy theory short story with the possible title being “The spam email made me do it.”
Welton clearly has mental health issues but the document describes Welton as “highly educated in computer science and related fields,” and says he moved to Thailand in 2004, to Portland, Oregon in 2012, and back to Thailand in 2015.
Between 2012 and 2015 is when it says things got weird and political:
“Mr. Welton went to live with his father, Richard Welton, in Iowa and spend time with him after his terminal cancer diagnosis. Being back in the United States brought Mr. Welton right back to the stress he experienced between 2012 and 2015. It was during that time that he also began receiving unsolicited political communication.”
The document goes on to say he was essentially getting spam mail from the Iowa GOP and the NCGOP because they both used Nationbuilder as their email app.
It’s unclear why Welton wasn’t just deleting or adding these emails to his spam folder, but his claims got even weirder, saying he got emails from the KKK. He offered no proof of these emails in any of the documents I could access, but that’s not to say said proof isn’t in the redacted or sealed items.
“Mr. Welton then received emails from the Trump campaign, the Republican Party, and even the Klu Klux Klan (KKK). Several of these organizations were based in North Carolina.
Mr. Welton never opted in to receiving these communications but received them via email to multiple addresses. He does not align politically, philosophically, or morally with these organizations in any way, yet he was incessantly, involuntarily bombarded with their messaging.
Being unwillingly subjected to such offensive messaging combined with the other stressors he was having to navigate at such time, these tense and stressful experiences triggered Mr. Welton’s PTSD symptoms for which he sought further counseling.”
The sentencing memorandum also describes Welton’s PTSD due to his wife’s failing health and he sought psychiatric help. His mental health became an issue again when COVID hit and he and his wife were stuck in Argentina which had declared martial law. Welton managed to get out of Argentina on a flight to Miami and during 2020 managed to return to Thailand.
The following year (2021) is when he started making calls to Tillis. The memoranda (hilariously) implies that after he threatened Tillis the first time and was charged, that the emails he was getting from GOP groups “ironically” stopped.
“Mr. Welton returned to Thailand in the fall of 2020. Even while living abroad he continued getting unsought political emails from which he could not unsubscribe. His PTSD-like symptoms were not subsiding, and he began drinking and taking his prescribed benzodiazepines.
That combination and the frustration he felt at not being heard spurred Mr. Welton to make a phone call to Senator Tillis’ office in Raleigh, North Carolina on September 29, 2021. Mr. Welton made this phone call from a laptop in Thailand.
The call was recorded, and Mr. Welton’s language and tone caused concern.
That call formed the basis of the Complaint filed against Mr. Welton in December 2021 charging him with threatening Senator Tillis. D.E. 1. An arrest warrant was issued that same day. D.E. 2. Ironically, by that time, Mr. Welton stopped getting emails.”
The sentencing document also describes Visa problems both he and his wife and his daughter encountered.
Welton had his passport revoked while on a trip to Africa. He was given a temporary passport and sent to the United States where he was arrested at the Atlanta airport in 2023 and his subsequent detention while the case involving his threats to Tillis unfolded.
Sometime in July will be the sentencing hearing. Until then, Welton is out and about staying at what appears to be his father’s house in Iowa, per the release document.