Federal prosecutors accused a man in Minnesota of threatening Attorney General Pam Bondi by posting an image on TikTok offering a $45,000 reward to harm her, according to a criminal complaint filed this month.

The man, Tyler Maxon Avalos, 29, posted an image with a target on Bondi’s forehead along with text that said she was wanted “DEAD OR ALIVE (PREFERABLY DEAD),” federal prosecutors in Minnesota said in the complaint. They charged him with interstate transmission of a threat to injure a person.

The criminal complaint, signed by an FBI special agent, Caleb Jurchisin, was filed Oct. 16 in the U.S. District Court for Minnesota. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright issued a warrant for Avalos’ arrest that day.

Avalos was arrested Oct. 17 and was out of custody as of Monday, Minnesota inmate records showed. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment early Tuesday.

Court records showed that the judge had granted Avalos a personal recognizance bond, releasing him in exchange for signing a written promise to appear for all court proceedings, wear a location tracking device, continue receiving mental health treatment and comply with other court orders.

The affidavit against Avalos was filed in a volatile and highly polarized environment in the United States, with several high-profile attacks against officials and political figures across the ideological spectrum driving widespread alarm.

The investigation into Avalos started on Oct. 9, when a TikTok user reported to the FBI National Threat Operations Center that an account had made a “murder for hire” threat against Bondi. The agency obtained screenshots of the TikTok account, which had 79 followers. The account’s most recent videos had been seen less than two dozen times, according to a screenshot in the affidavit.

The video with the photo of Bondi had received six likes and seven comments at the time, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit said that the account’s username was linked to the symbol for anarchy. The account description included the phrase, “Make John Brown Proud,” apparently referring to the 19th century American abolitionist who led an armed raid to start a slave rebellion.

The account description also contained the number 651, which is the area code for a region in Minnesota that includes St. Paul, where prosecutors said the suspect lived. The description also included an indication that the account owner used gender-neutral pronouns.

The criminal complaint said that the FBI had submitted what is known as an emergency disclosure request to TikTok, Google and Comcast to obtain the suspect’s name, home address, device model and IP address, a unique sequence of numbers assigned to the device.

Avalos has convictions across multiple states, according to the affidavit. He was convicted of felony stalking in Minnesota in 2022, felony third-degree domestic battery in Florida in 2016 and misdemeanor domestic assault in Minnesota in 2016, prosecutors said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By John Yoon/Kenny Holston
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