PORTLAND, Maine — A Buxton man who allegedly tweeted "I'm going to kill Jews with my AF-15 tomorrow" filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against him, citing his Fifth Amendment rights following a previous mistrial.
Brian Dennison, 25, was arrested in Buxton in September 2021 after a private security firm and the FBI flagged the tweet and another on the same day that said, "I'm building a pipe bomb."
Dennison was charged with transmitting threatening interstate communication, a felony that carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
In May, Chief U.S. District Judge Jon D. Levy declared a mistrial on the first day of Dennison's trial after being alerted that one of the witnesses who had just given testimony — an FBI agent who first contacted the defendant at his parents' home — tested positive for COVID. Levy said he could have attempted to carry on, but the witness had more testimony yet to give.
Before the COVID diagnosis, Dennison's defense lawyer, Thomas Hallett, tried to establish for the jury that Dennison's Tweet — while hateful, he said — only reached a small number of potential followers, and no reasonable person would feel threatened.
The prosecution, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Wolff, argued Dennison made a clear threat to harm others, with a specific date to carry it out.
In a motion to dismiss filed Wednesday by his attorney, Hallett argued a new trial would violate his Fifth Amendment rights against being prosecuted twice for the same crime.
Hallett writes that there was no "manifest necessity" to declare a mistrial for several reasons, including that the court failed to adequately investigate possible jury contamination, there was no evidence that the witness in question was an essential witness, that any witness unavailability was caused by the government, and that the court did not adequately investigate an alternative to a mistrial.