The arrest of Shawn Christy. Was the FBI justified?

As many of you know Shawn and his father, Craig Christy, were arrested on August 18th.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:

But Shawn and Craig, 47, are accused of being interested in technology as well. On Aug. 18, the day after a federal grand jury in Alaska indicted the pair, agents at the FBI office in Allentown, Pa., arrested the father and son and charged them with making hundreds of harassing, expletive-filled, and threatening phone calls to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's attorney John Tiemessen and employees of his law firm in early August. The calls were placed after Tiemessen and Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee and potential 2012 presidential candidate, obtained restraining orders against the two men in the last year because of what they said was harassment, including text messages and phone calls to Palin family members and friends. 

Shawn Christy reportedly admitted in court to having threatened to rape Palin, and sending her numerous emails and gifts. Following their arrest, Craig and Shawn appeared in U.S. district court in Allentown. "There's a level of obsession here that elevates the conduct from merely creepy to truly threatening," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gallagher reportedly said in arguing for the men to be held until they're transported to Anchorage for further court hearings. They face up to two years in jail, U.S. Attorney Retta-Rae Randall tells The Daily Beast.

I had written about Christy two times in April. Once essentially calling Sarah out for publicly playing the victim over these phone calls rather than handling it quietly (Like President Obama would) and then again later in the month after Christy lost his job, possibly over this same publicity.

I spoke to Shawn on the phone and though I did detect some difficulty separating reality from fantasy, I did not believe that Shawn posed a viable threat to the Palin family at that time. (An assessment also shared by the FBI, Secret Service, and Alaska law enforcement.) I did however tell Shawn that he should NEVER come to Alaska again, and that he needed to stop making any calls, or sending any e-mails, to the Palin family or friends. He agreed that was a good idea.

However clearly he did not take that "good idea" to heart.

In an affidavit dated Aug. 12, FBI Special Agent Jacqueline DeCou details the quite disturbing calls that the father-and-son duo allegedly made to the offices of Tiemessen and his family members. In an Aug. 1 call that Shawn allegedly left Tiemessen, he says: "... are you just a little fucking Semite kike that likes to get a dick up your ass and likes to fuck people over? Well, surprise, for the first time in your life, John, somebody small, some little dick fuck from McAdoo is going to ram it up your fucking ass and take everything away that you ever fucking—everything you fucking love ..." 

On Aug. 4, Craig allegedly left Tiemessen a death threat, according to the affidavit, in which he said: "I tell you, motherfucker, you're playing with the wrong fucking boy. I tell you what, you want to play fucking games like that, I'll fucking kill you. There's a fucking threat now, fucking bring it on, motherfucker. You got that? You wanna fuck with my boy like that, I will come and fucking kill you ..."

I am sorry, but there is just NO excuse for making these kind of threatening phone calls, or sending e-mails with a similar content.

I also spoke to Shawn's mom, Karen Christy, about the situation (Before I knew anything about the above exchanges.)  I chose to talk to Karen instead of her husband because I believed she was the most rational person in the family.

I talked to her about getting Shawn counseling, but she said he had passed a psychiatric evaluation with no problem, and that Shawn only had problems stemming from his exposure to Lyme disease.  She spoke about his gentleness and intelligence, and seemed to believe that the REAL problem stemmed from Sarah Palin and her family. Sadly there seemed to me to be a certain disconnect for Karen when it came to her son and husband's behaviors.

Anyway after that phone call I severed my communication with the Christy family.

Listen I know that it is very natural for those of us who have watched Sarah and her crazy antics all of these years to almost automatically take the side of anybody with whom she has a conflict.  But if what is described in the above affidavits is accurate, and I am sorry but it is hard to believe at this point that it is not, then as rational people we have to recognize that in this circumstance Sarah Palin might actually have really been the victim.

In other words, to answer the question posed in my headline, yes, it appears that the FBI was probably justified in their arrest of Shawn and Craig Christy.   I may wish that such were not the case, but all of the evidence seems to suggest that they had little choice.