INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) — A 28-year-old Indianapolis woman was sentenced Thursday to 27 months in federal prison for sending threatening messages to a Republican U.S. representative, according to court documents and a news release issued Tuesday from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana.
Shayla Addison pleaded guilty to two counts of influencing by threat Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina. In a January video, Mace expressed her gratitude to the FBI for taking the threats seriously. The first female elected to the U.S. House from South Carolina, she said in a November Facebook post that she and her office have faced more than 1,400 threats this year.
Beginning just before 9 a.m. Jan. 15, 2025, investigators say Addison sent five text messages to the representative's campaign phone, including explicit threats. Addison also sent threatening emails to the representative's campaign account, explicitly threatening to blow up a building and kill the representative.
The threats were intended to retaliate against Mace on account of her official duties, court documents said.
After her prison time, Addison will have three years of supervised release.
Addison has prior convictions in three separate cases related to intimidation and invasion of privacy.
In September 2019, she repeatedly called a Firehouse Subs restaurant in Plainfield, Indiana, where her ex-boyfriend worked, threatening to “blow up” or “shoot up” the store after he announced his new girlfriend was pregnant. She later texted, “We will be there at 1:00 p.m. to shoot the store up.” The calls continued into the next day.
In December 2019, Addison made more than 50 calls in one day to the same restaurant.
In September 2023, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to Addison's mother's apartment after she threatened to burn down the home and poured gasoline on the front steps. Officers found Addison sitting in her car with an open gas can on the front seat.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Indianapolis and the U.S. Capitol Police investigated the case. U.S. Chief District Court Judge James R. Sweeney II imposed the sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Olivier prosecuted the case.
