Karen Mathews Davis Admits Faking Death Threats During Congressional Run

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Published: 30 Oct, 2015
Updated: 18 Oct, 2022
2 min read

On Thursday, October 29, news broke that former congressional candidate, Karen Mathews Davis, admitted that two death threats she received while running for Congress were fake. Under federal investigation and having failed a polygraph test, Mathews Davis confessed that she made the whole thing up.

As reported on IVN, Mathews Davis allegedly received two threatening letters, one in 2013 and another in 2014, when she was running for California's 9th Congressional District.

One letter said, "A close up shot to your head or to your husband will be final. You make the decision now to not run for congress.”

Mathews Davis made headlines for her resolve and commitment to civic duty when she said she was not going back down.

"It caused real pause for me — in fact a lot of fear because I have received threats in the past. I almost dropped out, but after a lot of prayer and tremendous support from my husband, we decided we must go forward,” she stated.

Dating back to 1990, Mathews Davis says she received numerous threats during her time as Stanislaus County's clerk-recorder. She claimed that she received these threats from people who wanted her to erase their IRS leans (which is highly illegal), things such as bullets in her mailbox and even a fake bomb under her car.

In 1994, Mathews Davis was assaulted by a man hired to kill her. Her attacker was arrested and sentenced to 19 years in prison. Nine men total were convicted after 18 months of investigation. She even wrote a book about it called, The Terrorist in my Garage.

Federal investigators are now calling the 1994 assault into question. Current charges against her only relate to the most recent death threats, but additional charges are being considered. If she is convicted, she could face up to 5 years in prison.

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