CNBC's Shep Smith reports a New York City man was arrested and charged with threatening to kidnap and kill former President Trump if he refused to leave the White House. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi 

A New York City man was arrested Monday morning for allegedly threatening to kidnap and kill former President Donald Trump if he refused to leave the White House after losing the 2020 election.

The 71-year-old defendant, Thomas Welnicki of Rockaway Beach, Queens, allegedly made the threats to Trump as well as a dozen unidentified members of Congress in several calls over the past year to Secret Service offices and other law enforcement, a criminal complaint says.

Welnicki also allegedly told the Secret Service that there was a $350,000 reward to kill Trump and the lawmakers and said he might travel to Georgia on the same day the then-president was due to be there, Jan. 4, 2021.

Trump was not identified by name in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. But a footnote in that document identifies Welnicki’s target as the person who served as president from January 2017 through January 2021.

“During a voluntary interview on or about July 21, 2020, Welnicki told United States Capitol Police that ‘if [Individual-1] loses the 2020 election and refused to step down,’ Welnicki would ‘acquire weapons’ and ‘take him down,’” that complaint says.

“Welnicki bragged about how easy it was for him to acquire a firearm and added, ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I will stand up to fascism,’” the complaint says.

“At the end of the interview, Welnicki stated, ‘I really hope that God takes [Individual-1] out,’” it adds.

Welnicki repeatedly referred to Trump as “Hitler” in a call to the Secret Service in November, the complaint alleges.

“They are very concrete and scary threats,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Victor Zapana said at Welnicki’s appearance in Brooklyn federal court Monday, during which the defendant appeared via video.

Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon ordered Welnicki released on a $50,000 bond, with his brother acting as a surety. The prosecutor and the defendant’s lawyer agreed on most conditions of that bond.

Scanlon also ordered Welnicki to be evaluated for alcohol treatment and mental illness and to be tracked via a GPS device.

Welnicki’s lawyer, Dierdre Von Dornum, objected to that tracking condition during the hearing, telling the judge it would interfere with the conditions for evaluation placed on him. The judge disagreed.

Von Dornum noted that the first reported call to the Secret Service and other agencies by her client was made more than a year ago and that he had met three times since then with law enforcement.

“If there were any actual danger I think they would have arrested him sooner,” the defense lawyer said.

Von Dornum did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Welnicki shares the same name as a man of the same age and of New York origins who in 1992 was identified in a Tampa Bay Times article as having been questioned by police in the 1982 disappearance of Jennifer Marteliz, a 7-year-old Tampa, Florida, girl.

Public arrest records of the Thomas Welnicki arrested in the Trump threat case Monday mirror reports about a man with the same name in Tampa in the 1990s. Each has a record of drug-related arrests, including one that led to an eight-year prison term for heroin-related charges.

At the time of Jennifer’s disappearance, a man with the same name as Welnicki had been staying with his girlfriend, a nurse who lived in a duplex next to Marteliz’s father, according to press reports from the 1990s.

In a statement to Tampa police, the Thomas Welnicki in that city claimed to be psychic and said he had “vibes” that Jennifer was abducted by two men, one a young blond man, the other an older man, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

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