Former Georgia Poll Worker Gets 20 Months in Jail For Bomb Threat

A man who threatened to bomb a Macon area polling place will serve 20 months in prison.

Nicholas Wimbish, 26, of Milledgeville, must also serve a year of supervised release and pay a $2,000 fine under the sentence issued by U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell Thursday.

The former poll worker pleaded guilty in February to a count of conveying false information and making hoaxes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia.

“Americans must be able to express their political choices at the ballot box without fear of violence or harm,” U.S. Attorney William R. “Will” Keyes said, adding that such threats “undermine the core values” of the nation.

Wimbish worked at the Jones County Elections Office in Gray. He mailed a typed letter to the office with a handwritten note at the bottom that said there was a “boom toy” in an early voting place, prosecutors said.

Wimbish admitted to authorities that he knew the term was slang for a bomb. They found a copy of the letter on his computer.

Wimbish mailed the bomb threat pretending it was from a voter with whom he had a “verbal altercation,” prosecutors said.

This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Association Educational Foundation.