A Mountain Home man was arrested Tuesday for making threatening telephone calls to CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
Benjamin Craig Matthews, 39, made more than 40 threatening calls to CNN from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, according to a probable-cause affidavit filed in Baxter County Circuit Court.
Matthews has been charged with five counts of felony terroristic threatening, four counts of misdemeanor terroristic threatening and nine counts of harassing communications, which is a misdemeanor.
CNN has been a consistent target of President Donald Trump, and the affidavit noted that Matthews’ telephone records suggested “a pattern of harassment towards certain political affiliations.”
M.J. Condland, an investigator from the Atlanta Police Department, contacted the Baxter County sheriff’s office Friday about the investigation underway in Georgia. Condland is assigned to the police department’s Homeland Security investigation unit.
The threatening calls were made from a cellphone belonging to Matthews, according to the affidavit. Cell tower data indicated the calls were placed from Baxter County.
Matthews was in the Baxter County jail Wednesday with bond set at $15,000. He is scheduled to appear in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.