Palin stalkers arrested

MAT-SU — A father and son accused in federal court of making harassing phone calls to Sarah Palin’s attorney were arrested last week and are heading to Alaska to face charges.

According to an affidavit FBI Special Agent Jacqueline DeCou filed in federal court, the calls in question first came to light Aug. 2 when the agent received an email from John Tiemessen, an attorney in Fairbanks who obtained a restraining order on behalf of Sarah Palin and her family against Shawn Christy and Craig Christy.

“By the time I’m done you’re going to be nobody. You’re going to be walking on the street,” Shawn Christy allegedly says in a message left on the lawyer’s voicemail.

That voicemail was just the start of something much larger.

“On Aug. 3, 2011, at approximately 10:03 a.m., I received an e-mail from John Tiemessen advising me that he had received approximately 25 phone calls within the last hour from both Shawn Christy and Craig Christy,” DeCou wrote.

Craig Christy is Shawn Christy’s father.

Through the day, Tiemessen periodically updated DeCou and the final tally stood somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 calls from the two men in Pennsylvania, DeCou wrote in the affidavit.

On Aug. 4, DeCou wrote that Tiemessen took special notice of a call that seemed to contain a death threat from Craig Christy. DeCou’s affidavit contains a transcript of the alleged threat. Edited to remove profanity it reads:

“Cause I tell you … you’re playing with the wrong … boy. I tell you what, you want to play … games like that, I’ll … kill you. There’s a … threat now … bring it on … You got that? You wanna … with my boy like that, I will come and … kill you.”

DeCou writes that Craig Christy also allegedly called Tiemessen’s uncle and sister that day.

The calls continued. On Aug. 8, Tiemessen reported receiving 250 of them in one day.

“The tone of the messages was putting the staff on edge because they have been threatened by the Christys. They repeatedly say they are coming to Alaska. Tiemessen’s family also has been threatened and harassed telephonically,” DeCou wrote.

Another attorney at the firm reported receiving so many calls she had to pull the phone out of the wall. A legal secretary for the firm reported Shawn Christy threatened to come to Alaska and rape one of the attorneys, DeCou wrote.

“The telephone calls from the Christys to the law firm and its employees are continuing to this day,” DeCou wrote as of Aug. 12.

Federal statutes allow for a harassment charge even if all the caller did was make a person’s phone ring continuously.

According to court documents, the Christys were arrested Thursday, Aug. 18, in Allentown, Penn., on an arrest warrant issued the previous day. Despite some media reports to the contrary, the FBI says that this was the first time Shawn Christy was arrested in the Palin matter.

“We did not arrest Shawn Christy back in February,” FBI Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said Monday.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.