Eric Hafner

In Custody
Date of birth:1992
Age:34
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:2020s
State:New York
Time Imprisoned:
6 Years 11 Months 14 Days
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Eric Hafner

Biography

Eric G. Hafner (born 1991, New Jersey) is a perennial political candidate serving a twenty-year federal sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York, with a projected release in October 2036. A federal complaint charging him with transmitting threatening communications was filed under seal on October 6, 2016. After years living abroad and in hiding he was arrested on September 28, 2019 at the airport on Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, appeared two days later before Chief U.S. District Judge Ramona V. Manglona, and was produced in the District of New Jersey on October 23, 2019, where Magistrate Judge Tonianne J. Bongiovanni ordered him detained without bail. A federal grand jury indicted him on October 31, 2019 on thirty-three counts — nine of extortionate threats, eighteen of interstate threats and six of conveying false bomb threats — arising from messages threatening to kill or injure New Jersey elected officials, police officers, attorneys and judges and their families. He pleaded guilty on May 17, 2022 to three representative counts, then moved to withdraw the plea; the motion was denied on November 24, 2022 and refused again when he renewed it. He was sentenced on December 7, 2023 to 240 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. The Third Circuit affirmed on February 27, 2026, upholding both the refusal to let him withdraw the plea and the length of the sentence. He has been in continuous federal custody since his arrest in 2019, and ran for office from prison.

Case

Federal Correctional Institution, Otisville
Charges: Thirty-three counts in the October 31, 2019 federal indictment — nine counts of extortionate threats, eighteen counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce and six counts of conveying false bomb threats —.
Arrested: Sep 28, 2019
Sentenced: Dec 7, 2023
Incarcerated: Sep 28, 2019
Sentence: 240 months — twenty years — in federal prison plus three years of supervised release, imposed December 7, 2023, NOT in December 2022: the earlier date belongs to the guilty plea year and had been carried onto the sentencing by mistake. Projected release from the Bureau of Prisons is October 12, 2036. He was arrested on Saipan and held without bail from his first New Jersey appearance on October 23, 2019, and has been in continuous custody since, which is why the sentence computation credits time from 2019. Some Justice Department publicity and news reports give the arrest as September 27; a federal district-court opinion gives September 28, which is the date used here, the discrepancy apparently reflecting the local date across the date line or the moment authorities first took him into custody. His initial appearance in the Northern Mariana Islands on September 30, 2019 was before Chief U.S. District Judge Ramona V. Manglona, and the detention order was entered by Magistrate Judge Tonianne J. Bongiovanni; neither sentenced him, and no source in hand names the sentencing judge, so that field is left empty. Charges as recorded: Thirty-three counts in the October 31, 2019 federal indictment — nine counts of extortionate threats, eighteen counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce and six counts of conveying false bomb threats — over messages threatening to kill or injure New Jersey elected officials, police officers, attorneys and judges and their families. The case began with a complaint filed under seal on October 6, 2016 charging a single count of transmitting threatening communications under 18 U.S.C. section 875(c).
Indicted: October 31, 2019 — thirty-three counts.
Convicted: Yes
Institution State: New York

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