BLOOMINGTON – A Bloomington man is facing multiple felony counts of intimidation after he sent a series of threatening messages to family members, Indiana University staff, and local and state officials.
According to police, 44-year-old Joseph Alan Voelker made the threats on his X (formerly Twitter) account.
On Jan. 26, the FBI got involved in the investigation after a post from Voelker’s account, @BRJJP888. Voelkers posted, “The president of Indiana University is a fraudulent lying [explicit] and facilitated torture. She will be killed or life in prison.”
The post continued, “Every enabler will be killed or life in prison, you stupid [explicit].”
Voelker was found to have several other posts where he threatened to kill a previous IU president and another staff member.
Voelker also threatened Governor Eric Holcomb and Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson.
An IU Police Department investigator spoke with Voelker’s mother, who confirmed she had received threatening emails from her son. He signed the emails – King Joseph.
He also allegedly threatened a Monroe County Judge and the Chief of Police.
The post read, “Idiots like (Judge) Diekoff (Diekhoff) and police chief Diekoff (Diekhoff) will be killed. They violently terrorized me for decades. They violently tortured me and laughed. Literally.”
Voelker was arrested on charges of intimidation where the victim is a judge or bailiff, a Level 5 felony, and two counts of intimidation with threats to commit a forcible felony, a Level 6 felony. Voelker told police he made the threats after ‘being violently hurt by police and public officials for many years”.
Voelker is being held in the Monroe County Jail on a $100,000 surety bond and $1,000 cash bond.
He will appear in Monroe County Circuit Court 2 for a pretrial hearing on March 21, at 1:30 p.m.
