By John Monk
The Herald (Rock Hill, S.C.)
ROCK HILL, S.C. — A South Carolina convict serving time in state prison on armed robbery charges has just been indicted by a federal grand jury for threatening high national officials — for the third time over an 11-year period.
In 2014, Eric Rome, then a state convict, was indicted for threatening to kill then- President Obama. He said he couldn’t live in the world with a Black man in the White House, although he did not use the word “Black.”
Since being convicted for threatening Obama, Rome was indicted and convicted for threatening President Joe Biden — and now he’s just been indicted for threatening President Donald Trump.
For that offense, U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson gave Rome a 41-month sentence.
After serving out that sentence, Rome was arrested by state police in Greenville on armed robbery charges. In 2019, he was sentenced to serve 12 years in state custody.
But he couldn’t stop himself from threatening federal officials.
In 2022, Rome was indicted by a different federal grand jury for threatening the lives of former President Joe Biden, former vice president Kamala Harris and Judge Anderson, who had given Rome his first federal sentence. In that indictment, Rome called Trump “our true President.”
In 2023, Rome pleaded guilty before U..S. Judge Kenneth Bell on those threat changes and was sentenced to five years in federal prison. But at the time, he was still in state prison serving out a 12-year sentence for an armed robbery in Greenville.
Consequently, Rome, now 37, won’t start serving his five-year federal prison sentence until he finishes serving his state prison sentence for armed robbery, sometime in 2030. Then, he will be transferred to a federal prison to start serving the five-year sentence for his 2023 threats.
Now, having been indicted on yet another threat charge, Rome is likely to have another federal prison sentence added to the five-year sentence he is to start in 2030, if convicted.
In Rome’s second encounter with federal authorities for making threats, he was given a mental evaluation. However, the results of that evaluation remain under seal.
The latest federal indictment against Rome, issued earlier this week, accuses him of sending two letters in early January to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in Chicago, each full of angry anti-Jewish invective and ending with a threat to kill President Trump and also to kill his ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.
The latest letters also say “We, the Aryan Brotherhood .... are not going to sit idle.”
The Aryan Brotherhood is a white nationalist crime syndicate whose members operate unlawful networks both inside and outside prison, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center .
“The AB is a notoriously deadly organization. Some years ago, authorities calculated that while the group’s members made up less than one tenth of 1% of the U.S. prison inmate population, they were responsible for 18% of all prison murders,” the Southern Poverty Law Center website says. .
In previous threats for which he was given a five-year sentence, Rome had claimed to be a Trump supporter.
No court appearance data has been set for Rome. He does not yet have a lawyer.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday is prosecuting.
For the latest charge, Rome faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and restitution.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. State Department, and the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
The S.C. Department of Corrections is aware of Rome and his history. He is in Kirkland, a maximum security unit in Richland County off Broad River Road in the sprawling major state prison complex.
“We are aware of the new charges against inmate Rome. We are keeping him safe in our most secure housing unit,” said prison spokeswoman Chrysti Shain.
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