Man sentenced to prison for threatening to kill Donald Trump and his VP, but his identity is the real crazy part

A man from Michigan is going to prison for two years after he threatened to kill President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance online. But there’s something really weird about this story that caught everyone’s attention.

According to The Sun, James Donald Vance Jr., who is 67 years old and lives in Grand Rapids, admitted he was guilty of making the threats. Prosecutors said he posted scary messages on a social media site called Bluesky during March and April of 2025. He used a fake name on the site, calling himself “Diaperjdv.” His posts talked about killing the president, the vice president, and one of Trump’s kids.

Here’s the crazy part of this whole thing. The man who got arrested has almost the exact same name as the vice president he threatened. Vice President JD Vance’s real name is James David Vance. The government confirmed that these two men are not related at all, but the fact that they have such similar names has made this case famous all over the country. It’s pretty wild that someone named JD Vance got sent to prison for threatening VP JD Vance.

This guy really didn’t hold back with his threats

The things Vance Jr. wrote online were pretty serious. In one of his posts, he wrote, “If tRump, Vance, or Musk ever come to my city again, they will leave it in a body bag.” Then he added, “I will either be shot by a secret service sniper or spend the rest of my life in prison. I’ve only got about 10 years left anyway so I don’t care either way.”

He also made another threatening post back on March 7. That day, he saw a story about Donald Trump Jr. maybe running for president in 2028. He replied by writing, “I will murder that stupid f**ker before he gets secret service protection.” The FBI started looking into these posts right away because they take this kind of stuff very seriously.

The lawyer handling the case, US Attorney Timothy VerHey, talked about why threats like this matter so much. “The advent of the internet gives us all an opportunity to engage in the healthy exchange of ideas that are so important to a democracy,” he said. 

“But some would rather use this tool to threaten and intimidate, conduct that causes fear and damages our democratic ideals. When Vance said he planned to kill our President and Vice President simply because he disagreed with them, he crossed a line we all understand and so had to be punished.”

The judge in the case, US District Judge Paul Maloney, decided Vance Jr. needed to go to prison for two years. He also has to pay $250,000 as a fine. Judge Maloney called what he did “grievous conduct” and said the punishment should show other people not to do the same thing. The two crimes he admitted to could have gotten him up to five years behind bars and a $250,000 fine for each one.

This isn’t even the first time something like this happened recently in that part of Michigan. Just last month in October, another man named Richard James Spring got sentenced to 18 months for threatening Trump on X and TikTok.