A rural Mountain Home man, accused of making multiple threatening calls to a news anchor at CNN in Atlanta, made his first appearance in Baxter County Circuit Court Thursday.
Dozens of calls were allegedly made to CNN laced with death threats, racial slurs and reference to pipe bombs. Thirty-nine-year-old Benjamin Craig Matthews is charged with five felonies and 13 misdemeanors. His bond is set at $15,000 in connection with those calls. He was ordered to reappear Nov. 15th to formally enter his plea to the charges against him.
At one point, Matthews is said to have asked if he could be directed to the CNN reporter’s dead body, which he described as hanging from a tree.
In another call, Matthews refers to bloody pictures of the CNN journalist who is described as cut up into small pieces. According to the probable cause affidavit, the calls were made from Oct. 31st to Nov. 2nd. The affidavit lists the journalist who was identified only by the initials DL. A check of the CNN website shows the prime time anchor Don Lemon as the only on-air staffer with those initials.
The Baxter County Sheriff’s Office worked with the Atlanta Police Department in tracking Matthews to this area. Information gathered by Atlanta police showed the calls were made from a cellphone registered to Matthews.
Audio recordings of the calls indicated all of them were made from the same person. A person familiar with Matthews was asked to listen to the recordings and positively identified the Mountain Home man as the caller.
Phone records also showed Matthews had made calls to others, including Planned Parenthood, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Representative Maxine Waters.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI