PANAMA CITY — An irate disability recipient has pleaded guilty to federal charges of threatening to blow up the local Social Security office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.
Johnathon Mathew Garrett, 36, pleaded guilty to giving false information to the Social Security Administration (SSA) in connection with a threat in August that he was planning to blow up the Social Security Office, 97 Oak Ave. Garrett was attempting to intimidate the SSA employee into restoring his Social Security disability benefits, he admitted during a plea hearing late Wednesday.
Garrett, of Panama City, is scheduled to be sentenced July 15. He faces a maximum of five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, a term of supervised release of three years and a court-ordered reimbursement for the cost associated with investigative response.
During his plea, Garrett admitted that on Aug. 27 he called an SSA employee and threatened to “blow the whole thing up and destroy something.” Garrett allegedly had an issue with the amount of his Social Security check.
The SSA employee understood this comment to be a bomb threat against the SSA office, attorneys reported. As a result of his threat, the SSA office in Panama City and the surrounding block were evacuated until the area could be cleared by a bomb-detection team.
Panama City Police attempted to take Garrett into custody at his home of 2417 E. 34th Place, which was listed in his Social Security information. Police reported Garrett then grabbed two detectives and attempted to strike them several times. At one point, Garrett reached around one of the detectives in an attempt to grab his weapon, police said.
Garrett pleaded no contest to one of two counts of resisting arrest with violence in September. He was sentenced to three years of probation in Bay County Court. He now could face up to five years in federal prison when U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak sentences him in July.