Indian-origin convicted for harassing, making death threats to US officials

San Francisco: A 56-year-old Indian-origin man who made more than 3,000 harassing interstate phone calls to officials, some with death threats, has been convicted by a federal court in the US state of California.

Kulwant Singh Sandhu was yesterday found guilty of two counts of making harassing calls by Eastern California Federal Prosecutor Phillip A. Talbert.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant Federal Prosecutors Nirav Desai and James Conolly before Federal Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr.

The prosecution said in a statement that in about 2012 Sandhu started making harassing phone calls to the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington and to private individuals and in 2015 alone he made more than 3,000 calls and left 350 voicemails.

The SEC regulates the stock markets and the securities industry.

"His voicemails were profanity-filled tirades that repeatedly called for SEC personnel and others to be, among other things, rounded up, publicly hanged, water-boarded, burned alive, shot, and blown up with rockets and tanks," the prosecutor's office said.

"His comments were often sexually graphic and targeted individuals."

He is to be sentenced in April and faces a maximum of two years in prison for each of the two charges he was convicted of and a USD 250,000 fine.