California man pleads guilty to threatening Rep. Matt Gaetz

A California man pleaded guilty Thursday to threatening Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, federal prosecutors said.

Eugene Huelsman, 59, left a voicemail on January 9, 2021 at Gaetz's Florida office in which he said, in part, I m gonna put a bullet in you and called him a tyrant, according to court documents.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for Northern Florida said in a statement that Huelsman of Thousand Oaks, near Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to one count of transmission of a threat in interstate commerce.

The charge can carry up to five years in prison. Plea agreement documents don't seem to lay out a possible sentencing range.

The court documents don't say why Huelsman made the threatening call. It took place days after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump, who had lost the November election.

Huelsman's attorney did not respond to a request for comment Thursday night.

Huelsman was investigated by the Secret Service in 2018 for prior social media postings related to a member of a former president's family, a document associated with the plea agreement says. It doesn't know who the president is.