Philly man pleads guilty to making racist, violent threats against Black city employees
Mark Anthony Tucci claimed he was a member of the Proud Boys while threatening city employees, court records show.
A 44-year-old Philadelphia man pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges that he made racist, violent threats against Black City of Philadelphia employees and a Black motorist, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said.
On one occasion, Mark Anthony Tucci threatened to go to a city agency and “hurt everyone,” claimed that he knew one Black employee’s home address, repeatedly said the N-word and “stated several times that he was a part of the Proud Boys,” according to the affidavit in support of the amended criminal complaint and arrest warrant filed against Tucci in January.
In another instance, Tucci drove next to a Black female motorist during heavy traffic on I-95 in Northeast Philadelphia, rolled down his window and screamed repeatedly, “I’m going to kill you [racial expletive]! I’m going to shoot you!” and then threw a glass mug, denting the woman’s car, according to the prosecution’s guilty plea memorandum filed on Monday.
Tucci pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Gerald A. McHugh to one count each of threat to use a dangerous weapon, interfering with federally protected activities, cyberstalking, interstate communication of threats, and threats interfering with federally protected activities.
Douglas N. Stern, Tucci’s attorney, declined to comment until after his client’s sentencing, which is scheduled for Dec. 2.
According to the guilty plea memorandum, investigators found on Tucci’s iCloud account a PDF file of “The Great Replacement,” the 74-page manifesto written by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people and injured dozens of others at two New Zealand mosques in 2019.
Investigators said they also found “videos celebrating white supremacist accelerationism and neo-Nazism, including multiple videos celebrating Nazi salutes and Hitler; racist images and memes; and songs from a white supremacist rapper that include numerous references to ”killing[Black people] and creating an all-white society.”
On June 3, 2024, Tucci called a Philadelphia city agency to ask about an investigation of Tucci’s child, the criminal complaint said. Tucci began yelling, and the employee hung up after Tucci refused to stop yelling. The employee hung up again after Tucci called back and continued to yell.
Tucci, using his personal cell phone, then sent text messages to the employee’s personal phone, mentioned the employee by name and the street name where the employee lived, and said, “This is personal now,” and “Can’t hang up on me in person,” followed by a vulgar term, according to the criminal complaint, which did not say how Tucci got the employee’s personal number.
That same day, Tucci sent emails using his personal iCloud account to the employee, repeatedly using racist slurs, and signed at least one, “Thank You Mark.”
Again that day, Tucci called another city employee at the agency and used racial slurs. The employee used caller ID and called back Tucci, who erupted in another racist tirade and then threatened to come to the office and “hurt everyone,” the criminal complaint said.
During this call, the criminal complaint said, Tucci “stated several times that he was a part of the Proud Boys.”
In a footnote, the criminal complaint explained: “The ‘Proud Boys’ is a group that is known to the FBI. This organization has multiple U.S. chapters, including one known to the FBI in Philadelphia. The Proud Boys is a nationalist organization with multiple U.S. chapters that describes itself as a ‘pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.’”
The criminal complaint said the agency employee who received the personal text messages “feared that Tucci would find them, and seriously injure or kill them or their family members.” The employee started to carry mace and “went out of their way to make their pattern of life unpredictable for months after the incident, in case Tucci was following them.”
Tucci’s case was investigated by the FBI, the Pennsylvania State Police, and the Philadelphia Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Jeanette Kang for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Samuel Kuhn of the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section.