Mississippi man found not guilty of threatening Republican US Sen. Roger Wicker

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A jury has cleared a Mississippi man on a charge of threatening to kill Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker during a confrontation with one of Wicker’s relatives.

Six women and six men deliberated about an hour and a half Tuesday before unanimously finding William Carl Sappington not guilty of threatening to injure or kill a United States official, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.

Sappington’s attorney, Tom Levidiotis, said federal prosecutors failed to prove the alleged threat was credible.

“There is no scintilla or proof that this had anything to do with (the senator’s) official duties,” Levidiotis said. “Roger Wicker has no idea this guy even exists.”

After the verdict in the two-day trial, Sappington was released from jail for the first time since he was arrested on the charge in May 2023.

Conviction would have been punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison.

Sappington was accused of going to the Hickory Flat home of the senator’s second cousin, George Wicker, on April 26, 2023. Prosecutors believed the testimony of George Wicker, 83, who said Sappington asked if he was related to the senator and then said, “You tell him that I’m going to kill him.”

During an FBI interview, Sappington denied making a direct threat against Roger Wicker, who has been in the Senate since 2007.

“If I went there to kill him, he’d be dead,” Sappington said during the recorded 2023 FBI interview that was played to the jury. “But I’m not into that. I don’t even want to kill him with the law.”

Sappington said he accused the senator of being part of a conspiracy to cover up an aggravated kidnapping against him. In February 2014, Sappington was arrested in the assault of his own brother. He tried to flee and