Sun Valley Man Jailed for FBI Threats

A San Fernando Valley man has been found guilty of sending threatening emails to the FBI, including ones in which he threatened to bomb the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and referenced the notorious ‘Unabomber.’

Mark William Anten, 52, of Sun Valley, was found guilty of two counts of threats by interstate communication. He has been in federal custody since December 2023.

According to evidence presented at a three-day trial, from July 2023 to December 2023, Anten sent a series of increasingly threatening communications to the FBI, culminating in two threats to bomb the FBI field office in Westwood.

‘Law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to keep our community safe and therefore deserve our thanks and respect,’ said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. ‘Those who threaten the FBI and other law enforcement officers ignore the daily sacrifices these officers make to protect us and undermine the rule of law. We will continue to stand with our law enforcement partners.’

‘Even after being warned, Mr. Anten double-downed on his threats to murder FBI employees,’ said Krysti Hawkins, the Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. ‘The FBI will not tolerate credible death threats to individuals or institutions and, as evidenced during the trial, neither did the jury.’

These emails included repeated references to Theodore John Kaczynski, a.k.a. ‘The Unabomber,’ whose 20-year bombing campaign killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more. Kaczynski was convicted of federal crimes, spent the bulk of his prison sentence in the Supermax federal prison in Colorado and died in a different federal prison last year.

Anten’s conduct escalated despite being warned by FBI task force officers who interviewed him on November 20, 2023. During the interview, Anten admitted to sending the previous communications. Two days later, Anten sent an email in which he wrote, ‘I AM THE UNABOMBER’ and ‘I WILL UNABOMB THE LOS ANGELES FBI HQ.’

United States District Judge Wesley L. Hsu scheduled a September 13 sentencing hearing, at which time Anten will face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each count. The FBI investigated this matter, and Assistant United States Attorneys Clifford D. Mpare and Kedar S. Bhatia are prosecuting this case.