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Threat charge heard in court

No trial date set for Warren man

WARREN — A 27-year-old Warren man faces a federal charge of interstate communication threat after Warren police alleged he made social media threats against law enforcement.

A pretrial hearing for Edward J. Killingsworth Jr., 27, was scheduled for Monday in U.S. District Court in Akron. His attorney, Nathan Ray, said the judge has postponed the original trial date. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, no new trial date has been selected.

“We anticipate going forward to trial,” Ray said about his client’s intentions.

Court documents state Killingsworth has been in federal custody at Northeast Ohio Correctional Facility in Youngtown since he was released from state prison on March 31. That was when marshals picked him up on the federal charge, documents state.

In September 2019, officers were notified about alleged threats posted in the comments section of the Facebook feature: “Warren’s Real Breaking News” about Niles officers being cleared of any wrongdoing in the 2018 fatal shooting of Matthew Burroughs.

The posts were quoted as saying, “I think a cop needs killed around here again,” on Sept. 16, 2019. Another Sept. 17 posting states:“(M)ore cops need shot dead. They kill us, we kill them. Simple.”

The federal grand jury decided Killingsworth was the alleged perpetrator, according to the federal indictment filed March 4, 2020.

On May 20, Killingsworth wrote Judge Adams saying his lawyer had coronavirus, and the defendant wanted to receive evidence in the case.

Court documents state Killingsworth has been in federal custody at Northeast Ohio Correctional Facility in Youngstown since March 31. Court records show Killingsworth had been sentenced by Trumbull Common Pleas Judge Andrew D. Logan on Jan. 25, 2018, to a term of 17 months in prison for a probation violation for a 2016 conviction for trespassing into a habitation where a person is present.

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