A former nurse has been accused of coercing her children to record videos of her threatening to kill Vice President Kamala Harris and sending the series of menacing clips to her husband in prison.
Niviane Petit Phelps, 39, a former nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital, has pled guilty on Friday, Sept. 10, in Miami federal court to a six-count indictment charging her with making threats to assassinate Vice President Kamala Harris, CBS4 Miami reported.
In February this year, Phelps reportedly sent her husband, who is locked up in state prison after being convicted of a 1996 armed robbery and the murder of a grocery store owner, a handful of 30-second video clips showing her angrily proclaiming her plans to murder the Vice President.
“Kamala Harris you are going to die. Your days are numbered,” Phelps said in one of the videos recorded on Feb. 13.
In another clip dated Feb. 14, Phelps says “If I see you in the street, I’m gonna kill your ass Kamala Harris.”
“I’m going to the gun range, just for your ass, until you f--kin’ leave the chair,” Phelps continued in another video she recorded on the same day.
In addition to making threats and screaming expletives, Phelps reportedly declared in her videos that she had accepted US$53,000 to carry out the “hit” against Vice President Harris and added that she would carry out the assassination within 50 days.
The videos were mostly recorded by her children, according to The United States Department of Justice.
Along with the recorded materials, Phelps also sent her husband photographs of herself holding a firearm with a target sheet at a gun range. It was found that Phelps reportedly applied for a concealed weapon permit just two days after she sent these photographs, Miami Herald reported.
Phelps, who is an African-American woman, told a Secret Service agent who spoke with her before her arrest that she threatened to kill Harris because she believed that the Veep “isn’t actually Black.”
Scott Saul, Phelps’ defense attorney, justified his client's innocence saying she would likely not have carried out any of her death threats, claiming the suspect “has led an honorable life until this incident.”
"She was just venting as she was going through a tumultuous time in her life and never had any intent to carry out her threats … threats limited to discussions with her incarcerated husband,” he said.
Phelps reportedly lost her job as a longtime nurse at Jackson Health System after the charges were filed by federal prosecutors Abbie Waxman and Michael Gilfarb.
Phelps' sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 19 later this year before United States District Judge Jose E. Martinez. Phelps faces a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison.
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