Former Monmouth County man gets 20 years in prison for phone threats, false bomb threats
TRENTON - A former Monmouth County man was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison after making threatening phone calls and emails to state officials, and calling in false bomb threats to government offices, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Eric G. Hafner, 32, pled guilty on May 17, 2022, to one count of making threatening communications in interstate or foreign commerce with intent to extort, one count of making threatening communications in interstate or foreign commerce and one count of conveying false information concerning the use of an explosive device, according to Sellinger.
Hafner has repeatedly targeted elected representatives, judges and law enforcement, as well as private citizens, with threats and extortion attempts, Sellinger said. He further victimized them by calling in several false bomb threats to a courthouse, police department, law firms, businesses and an elected official's office.
“These types of threatening communications are unacceptable," Sellinger said. "They cause serious harm to victims, and will be met with a swift response by this Office. This defendant has now faced justice for these serious crimes.”Between July 2016 and May 2018, while living out of the country, Hafner communicated threats to numerous individuals located in and around Monmouth County and elsewhere, according to Sellinger. The victims were elected officials, judges, police officers, attorneys and their families. Hafner sought to extort $350,000 from some of his victims in addition to the bomb threats.
Hafner's targets were connected to a juvenile case against him that began in 2007, a 2011 municipal court case and a family court case in which a judge ruled against him in 2012, according to the indictment.
The threats began July 27, 2016 — the day after he boarded a flight from Hawaii to Tokyo — when he called an unnamed municipal police department in Monmouth County and said that the officer who arrested him on a juvenile complaint in 2007, "deserves to get shot" and the officer's juvenile child will get "his head bashed in," according to the indictment.
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The indictment does not say what Hafner was accused of as a juvenile, but states the case was resolved with a guilty plea. Hafner told the Asbury Park Press in 2018 — during one of his runs for Congress — that he had outstanding warrants in Monmouth County for drugs and contempt of court.
Some of the threats included calling the private home of the officer who arrested him. When the officer's spouse answered, he threatened to kill the officer's spouse and child. Hafner also called the assistant county prosecutor who was assigned to his juvenile case, identified as Attorney 1 in the indictment. He threatened to kill the attorney, now working in private practice, "slice [Attorney 1] up" and feed him to Hafner's dogs.
Hafner also menaced people involved in an unspecified county Family Court case that went against him, authorities said. He threatened the attorney who represented the opposing party in the case, identified as Attorney 2 in the indictment, and contacted the attorney's spouse to make ominous statements about their children, according to the indictment.
He threatened to kill an elected official in July 2016 over the reappointment of the judge who ruled against him in the case, authorities said.
He accused the attorney of bribing the judge and lamented that the ruling prevented him from paying for college, according the indictment. The document alleges:
On Aug. 26 2016, he sent an email to the attorney's spouse, identified as Victim 1 in the indictment, that read in part, "You need to get me the money owed or I will take what is mine and let's say it might be strikingly drool worthy in a way you won't like. ... You're out of your league princess."
That same day, he sent another email to Victim 1 with the subject line "Re: Parenting 101," that read in part, "Want to make this end? Here's how. [Attorney 2] cuts me a check for $350,000 to cover the child support that was owed to me but illegally cut off and higher education expenses. ... If you can't come up with the cash white girls like, (the attorney's two children), go for top dollar."
Four days later, another email to the attorney and the spouse included the message, "You won't get anymore warnings, you will wake up to a burning house. Try me."
Nearly a year later, Hafner sent another threatening email to the couple and another attorney who worked at the same law firm with the subject line, "Murder coming soon!"
Hafner was arrested Sept. 27, 2019, in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. He was brought back to New Jersey and appeared in federal court in Trenton at a hearing on Oct. 23, 2019, where he was denied bail.
Along with the prison term to the prison term, Hafner was sentenced to three years of supervised release, Sellinger said.
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Jenna Calderón covers breaking news and cold cases in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Before coming to the Press, she covered The Queen City for Cincinnati Magazine in Ohio. Contact her at 330-590-3903; jcalderon@gannettnj.com
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth news: NJ man sentenced for threats to US government
