UPDATE: U.S. marshals told News4 they transported Archie Glass Jr. from the D.C. Jail to western Oklahoma.
Glass was spotted near the White House last week and taken into custody by law enforcement after being imprisoned four times for threatening to assassinate U.S. presidents, including President Obama. He was on probation and had recently served time in a halfway house for his most recent conviction in 2009.
Glass violated his probation by traveling from the Oklahoma City-area earlier this month. Court records said police were planning to send Glass back home on a bus after he was stopped. But U.S. marshals said he was actually taken into custody and placed in the D.C. Jail.
An Oklahoma man who made threats against President Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton -- and who said he wanted to be the "next John Hinckley" -- was stopped Sunday outside the White House.
The case of Archie Monroe Glass, Jr., raises questions about how Glass was able to get within close range of the White House, despite being under travel restrictions and the supervision of probation officials and mental health providers.
Glass was stopped outside the White House gate by U.S. Secret Service agents, who then made arrangements to transfer him to a mental health facility, the News4 I-Team learned. U.S. marshals took Glass into custody, and he is in D.C. Jail.
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Glass is accused of leaving Oklahoma without permission. He was in the halfway house after serving a 5-year federal sentence for threatening to assassinate Obama and Bush.
In 2008, Glass sent a letter from El Reno stating, “Mr. President, I’m going to murder you very soon by shooting you in the head and will do the very same thing to the winner of the November Presidential election.” Glass had also served previous a federal prison term for threatening to kill President Clinton and Hillary Clinton.
The U.S. Secret Service declined to comment on Glass' case.
In a surprising coincidence, Glass was recently an inmate at El Reno federal prison, the prison visited by President Obama in July. Court records indicate Glass was at a halfway house in Oklahoma City at the time of the president’s visit.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Probation Office said Glass was being held in an Oklahoma City halfway house through June. She said he was staying at a private residence during the period of time in which he traveled to Washington this week.
Glass has a mental health condition, court records show. He made similar threats in the 1990s and was imprisoned previously for the same crime, appeals court records reviewed by the I-Team show.
Federal court records show Glass was also charged in 1996, 2001 and 2002 with threatening to assassinate a president. None of the available court records reference any firearms or violent actions by Glass.
In the 1996 case, a witness said Glass "wanted to get in the history books like Hinckley [sic] and wanted to shoot Bill Clinton and Hilary [sic]."
Federal prosecutors, in newly filed court records, said Glass also appears to have visited Washington in mid-May.
Their court filings said, “U.S. Marshals recovered a bus ticket showing that Mr. Glass departed from Oklahoma City on May 18 and arrived in Washington DC on May 20.” Prosecutors said Glass admitted to visiting Washington when questioned. He unlawfully left a halfway house in which he was being held to make the trip, according to court records.
Prosecutors said Glass is not permitted to leave western Oklahoma without court permission. Glass is scheduled to appear in federal court in Oklahoma City on Sept. 8 for violating conditions of his probation.
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino said it’s uncommon for people who’ve made assassination threats to get within range of the White House.
“People who make threats rarely get near the grounds," Bongino said. "The Secret Service does a very good job of catching up with these people before they make it near Washington. The Secret Service is very good at intercepting the football.”
Local police in El Reno, Oklahoma and the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office said they found no records of any recent investigations into Glass.
