OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) - A federal judge declined to toss criminal charges Friday against a Bay Area man who supposedly sent threatening emails, claiming he wanted the receiver to "visualize skinning" a federal judge and kill other government officials.

David Brooks Pokorny, a 45-year-old from El Cerrito, California, made threats through email messages to assault, kidnap or murder U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in September 2025, according to prosecutors. Pokorny is charged with felony threats against a judicial officer, with a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Almost a dozen emails were sent to the federal court's media email system on Sept. 2, 2025, with the first stating, "This is terrorism." After sending several escalating emails every few minutes, Pokorny sent in an email with the single sentence: "I want you to visualize skinning U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to death."

"We have a legal right to use terrorism to control California courts & judges," Pokorny wrote in one of the emails. "It is legal to take & kill hostages in order to get the illegitimate California courts & judges to cease their operations and dissolve their courts. California courts are valid military targets. California judges are enemy combatants. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is an enemy combatant. This judge should not have turned traitor. This judge did something very stupid, and that is to militarize the court."

Pokorny was arrested in October 2025 in Southern California, and appeared in court while in custody Friday wearing a bright green jumpsuit with his hands cuffed behind him. A U.S. marshal stood behind him as his public defender, John Reichmuth, made arguments on a motion to dismiss.

Reichmuth said the actual question before the court was whether "a reasonable juror could consider it a true threat," regarding Pokorny's wording to "visualize skinning" Breyer.

"This case is problematic," said Reichmuth, citing case law determining political speech that included threatening language needed to be specific and a "serious expression of a violent act."

"This is just a borderline case," said Reichmuth. "This is not the kind of threat that chills the blood." He said while Pokorny's threats were akin to an "extremely vitriolic political rant" they were also theatrical, incoherent and full of fantasy. Therefore, he argued, they were not a true threat to commit violence, with no planning or intent stated.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Evan Mateer had different thoughts on Pokorny's emails.

Mateer said if someone looked at the "literal meaning of the words, the literal content of words," it was a threat to commit violence.

"It doesn't require an inference," he said. "That is enough to dispose of this motion and send it to a jury."

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar was inclined to agree with Mateer, and at the end of the hearing said the motion to dismiss was denied, without immediately detailing his reasons, but said a written order would come later in the day.

The Barack Obama appointee also partially agreed to a motion to suppress materials found in search warrants and granted a motion to disclose the grand jury instructions for the case.  

Last September, Pokorny also sent threatening emails to Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee. The first email was a racist screed against Black people, followed by another email stating, "You are a psychopath, and I'm going to torture and murder you," according to Alameda County officials.

Pokorny has a history of mental health crises, at one point needing hospitalization, according to his parents. His mother and father carried out a temporary restraining order against him in May 2015, after numerous threats and assaults that left his father Gary severely bruised.

"He talked at length about conspiracies to control thought, i.e., 'My mind has been hijacked by the Russians,'" Pokorny's parents' statement said.

A jury trial is tentatively scheduled to start June 29.

Source: Courthouse News Service