TAMPA — Martin Alan Schnitzler formally pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge as expected on Friday for leaving threatening voicemails with two Pinellas County mosques in November.
The 43-year-old Seminole man admitted to the crimes in a federal plea agreement filed in January. On Friday, he appeared in federal court and formally pleaded guilty to a charge of obstructing persons in the free exercise of religious beliefs in front of federal Magistrate Judge Julie Sneed.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Schnitzler admitted that after the terrorist attacks in Paris he called in threats to the Islamic Society of St. Petersburg and the Islamic Society of Pinellas County in Pinellas Park.
In one voicemail, Schnitzler threatened to "personally have a militia" dispatched to one of the mosques to "firebomb you, shoot whoever is there on sight in the head."
A sentencing date has not been scheduled yet. Schnitzler faces up to 20 years in a federal prison.