A 39-year-old Florida nurse who admitted to threatening to kill Vice President Kamala Harris could be sentenced to five years in prison if convicted for the offense.
According to PEOPLE, Niviane Petit Phelps was charged with a six-count indictment in connection with threatening the life of Harris. She pleaded guilty to the offense at a federal court on Friday, the Department of Justice announced in a statement.
Phelps acknowledged to the court that she sent her incarcerated husband videos of her threatening to take the life of the country’s first Black female vice president. Those videos in question were sent in February.
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“The videos show Phelps making the threats, screaming curse words, saying that she had accepted $53,000, to carry out the ‘hit’ against Vice President Harris, and explaining that she would carry out the assassination within 50 days,” the statement said.
“Some of the video clips she recorded herself; others, she had her children record,” the statement added. “After sending these videos, Phelps sent a photograph of herself holding a firearm with a target sheet at a gun range.”
The statement also claimed that “Phelps applied for a concealed weapon permit” two days after that. “Phelps also admitted to telling law enforcement officers who handled this case, that if they had not come to her house, she ‘doesn’t know’ what would have happened,” the Department of Justice added.
Phelps is also reported to have told investigators her reason for threatening Harris was because she believes the 56-year-old politician is not Black. Harris was born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father. Phelps also claimed Harris did not place her hand on the bible while she was being sworn in, adding that her hand was rather over her purse, PEOPLE reported.
Following her arrest in connection with making the threats, Phelps’ mother, Heroeia Petit, pleaded for leniency. She told NBC6 her daughter is unwell and “she doesn’t even know what she’s doing.”
“Don’t punish her … ’cause she listened to what people tell her,” Petit said. “… She’s desperate. She don’t got nothing to do. Her husband’s been in jail 10 years, two children. The house, she lost everything.”
Phelps is scheduled to be sentenced on November 19.
