A Richmond County man was recently sentenced to federal prison after threatening to blow up Augusta’s Social Security office nearly a year ago.

Keyon Tishaye Dickens, 39, of Augusta, was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to using a telephone to make a threat to injure a person or damage a building by explosives, according to a news release from Jill E. Steinberg, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.

U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall also ordered Dickens to serve three years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term, according to the release. There is no parole in the federal system.

As described in court documents and testimony, Dickens received a notice in September 2023 that he was receiving overpayments to his Supplemental Security Income and that the Social Security Administration intended to recoup the funds from future SSI checks, according to the release.

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In response, Dickens called the Social Security Administration office in Augusta and said, “I’m going to shoot the office up and I’m going to blow it up. I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do,” according to the release.

Carrying a backpack, Dickens later visited the Social Security office and showed the security guard a note that read, “I have a bomb,” according to the release. The officer notified the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, and the building was locked down and evacuated.

No bomb was found, and Richmond County deputies took Dickens into custody, according to previous reporting.

“Keyon Dickens’ malicious actions are criminal and intolerable,” said Michelle L. Anderson, acting SSA Inspector General. “This sentence demonstrates that threats to Social Security employees and offices are felonious and will not be ignored. We will continue to aggressively respond to threats, investigate the perpetrators and seek prosecution.”

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Man sentenced in Augusta bomb threat at Social Security Administration

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who built a career as an uncompromising crime-fighter, has been permanently disbarred from practising law in Washington DC in a ruling stemming from his role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favour.

The decision came in the form of a one-page order issued by the US capital’s court of appeal and followed a similar order issued in July in New York, Giuliani’s home state.

Unlike that ruling, the decision in Washington was not directly related to his actions in Trump’s election-denying effort but was instead based on his failure to respond to a request that he explain why he should not be subject to the same penalty as meted out in New York.

“ORDERED that Rudolph W Giuliani is hereby disbarred from the practice of law in the District of Columbia, nunc pro tunc [a Latin term used in legal parlance to mean retroactive] to August 9, 2021,” Thursday’s appeal court order said.

In 2021, the appeals court had suspended Giuliani’s law licence in Washington after being notified of a similar decision in New York.

The DC bar’s board of responsibility recommended in 2022 that Giuliani’s law licence be indefinitely revoked after its investigators found him guilty of unethical conduct over inaccurate and unsupported claims he made in testimony to a federal court in Pennsylvania while disputing the 2020 election results.

The DC court of appeals order did not hinge on those findings. By contrast, the New York appeals court made similar judgments in issuing its ruling, asserting that Giuliani “repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public … and this Court concerning the 2020 Presidential election”.

Ted Goodman, a spokesman for Giuliani called the order “an absolute travesty and a total miscarriage of justice”.

“Members of the legal community who want to protect the integrity of our justice system should immediately speak out against this partisan, politically motivated decision,” he said.

The order is the latest blow to the standing of a man who was dubbed “America’s mayor” for the leadership role he played in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York in 2001, which happened when he was the city’s mayor.

Last year, two election workers in Georgia won $148m in damages after he defamed them by accusing them of fraud. A week later he filed for bankruptcy.