• The man threatened Trump online for a decade before arrest
• Sword confrontation ended with surrender and home search

Authorities in Massachusetts arrested 45-year-old Andrew Emerald on Wednesday after a standoff during which he brandished a sword, following a series of threats he posted on Facebook against U.S. President Donald Trump.

The federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts, charged Emerald with eight counts related to threatening posts made over the past year, including one promising to travel to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida if the president was not dead by 2026.

In another post in May 2025, Emerald wrote: “Either Trump is dead and in the ground by 2026, or I am hunting him down and putting him there,” according to the indictment.

During his initial court appearance, Emerald pleaded not guilty, and the court ordered him held without bail pending a final hearing on Monday.

Prosecutors noted that Emerald’s Facebook activity caught the FBI’s attention after a citizen warned him that threatening the president is a crime. Emerald admitted to making threats online for ten years, stating, “I’ll kill them until they kill me,” if authorities intervened.

When FBI agents went to his home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to execute an arrest warrant, Emerald initially refused to come out, eventually appearing while holding a long metal sword, according to the FBI affidavit.

The affidavit said Emerald had previously mentioned his sword in Facebook posts threatening Trump, including in July 2025, when he claimed he would thrust it through the president’s throat.

Emerald threatened to force agents to shoot him before closing his door, prompting the intervention of local police and an FBI negotiation team.

Authorities finally convinced him to surrender after a phone call from a police officer, and investigators seized multiple bladed weapons during a search of his home.