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SALT LAKE CITY -— Federal agents arrested a Salt Lake man Friday for allegedly using Facebook and e-mail to make violent threats against government agencies.
Mark Eric Bayne, 36, was taken into custody on a charge of threats in interstate commerce. He will be held in the Davis County Jail pending a detention hearing in U.S. District Court next Tuesday.
According to the felony complaint, Bayne sent e-mails to state, federal and private institutions and universities from a computer at Salt Lake Community College.
"In those e-mails, he has expressed deep-seeded anger, and used vulgar epithets to demean the recipients and the particular institutions they represent," Special Agent Eric M. Miller wrote in the complaint.
"In the e-mails, he has also expressed threatening language stating an intention to commit violent acts upon individuals as retaliation against those that he believes have wronged him."
Bayne also posted threats on his Facebook page, the complaint states.
A Nov. 26 post listed in the complaint reads: "These are the worst form of humanity (Utahns [sic] and Subversive Mormons and their whores) right along with them [sic] monkeys in Georgia. In retaliation: Take at least thirty of their women and children (at the cost of each man) EVER DAY [sic]. Effective Primary Targets: ..."
The list of targets is blacked out. Federal prosecutors asked Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba to redact them from the court document, said Melodie Rydalch, U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman.
Miller wrote that the postings and the e-mails would cause "apprehension and fear in a reasonable person."
The complaint also notes Bayne's Facebook page has a link to the video of a man who shot at members of a Florida school board this week.
On Bayne's Facebook page, which remains up and running, he indicates he is homeless. The home address he lists belongs to a UPS store, which authorities say he uses as a mailing address.
Postings on the page rail against various state and federal agencies, Mormons and Utah in general. One reads: "Held Hostage by The State of Utah. Trapped in Utah Forced Into Poverty by Prejudice Employers."
Bayne's Facebook photo album includes Black Panther co-founder Huey Percy Newton, abolitionist Frederick Douglas and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
E-mail: romboy@desnews.com
