A judge on Monday sentenced a San Diego man to six months in federal prison and four months of house arrest for sending a threatening email to a member of the LGBTQ community who had appeared in a 2023 news report speaking out against the killing of a woman who had hung a Pride flag outside her business near Lake Arrowhead.
George Joseph Wellinger II, 49, pleaded guilty in March to a federal count of interstate threatening communication with a special finding that he intentionally selected his target based on her actual or perceived sexual orientation.
Wellinger’s attorney wrote in sentencing documents that his client has since sent two letters of apology to the victim. In the second letter, Wellinger told the victim his actions were “extremely harmful, completely disrespectful, and despicable.”
Prosecutors said the victim of Wellinger’s threatening message had appeared in a KTLA story about the slaying of 66-year-old Laura Carleton in August 2023 in the Lake Arrowhead area in San Bernardino County. Authorities have said Carleton’s killer, 27-year-old Travis Ikeguchi, tore down Carleton’s rainbow Pride flag and made several homophobic remarks before shooting the married mother of nine children. Ikeguchi, who was later killed in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies, had also written and shared hateful posts about the LGBTQ community on social media, according to San Bernardino County officials.
On the day the KTLA story was published online, Wellinger sent his threatening email to a woman who had appeared in the news story who was “clearly … in distress” and who referenced her “sense of security being stripped away following the killing,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
“I love it — another alphabet clown that wants to take a dirt nap too,” Wellinger wrote in the email, followed by a link to the KTLA story. “We know what you look like and where you are….only a matter of time…”
The email continued: “Love it … we coming for your rainbow azz. Click Click!!!!”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Jimenez wrote that there was “no mistake from a reasonable person’s perspective” that the email was meant as a death threat. Wellinger “chose the words dirt nap, a clear reference to burying someone, and ended his email with ‘click click,’ which imitates the sound of cocking a firearm,” Jimenez wrote.
The victim’s life has been “irreversibly impacted,” and she now lives in fear, Jimenez wrote. “(She) began to experience panic attacks, changed (her) daily routine, was more aware of her surroundings, and began to attend therapy as a result of the threatening email.”
Defense attorney Stefano Molea wrote in sentencing documents that Wellinger is “burdened with deep feelings of shame and regret” over his actions, which he said were motivated in part by binge drinking and isolation, both of which had worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Mr. Wellinger has accepted full responsibility for his conduct and is sincerely remorseful for the harm his words have caused,” Molea told the Union-Tribune in a statement. “He has taken — and will continue to take — steps toward remedying his wrongs and bettering himself.”
Wellinger sent the victim two apology letters, the first written while FBI agents were searching his home last year. In a more recent letter sent in April, Wellinger said he’d been undergoing therapy and now better understood why he lashed out. “It was my loneliness and lack of community at the time that made me angry towards yours,” he wrote.
