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- Anthony Beardall, 48, was arrested and accused of threatening police and church leaders.
- He was booked for investigation of seven counts of making terrorism threats and 16 counts of electronic communication harassment.
- Beardall previously fled the country to avoid arrest and had active warrants, police say.
PROVO — A man with a history of making threats was arrested Sunday and accused of threatening police and church leaders.
Anthony Beardall, 48, was booked into the Utah County Jail for investigation of seven counts of making a threat of terrorism and 16 counts of electronic communication harassment.
The investigation began nearly a year ago in May when police say Beardall began to frequently call Provo emergency dispatchers.
"In each of the calls, he threatened, harassed and attempted to intimidate dispatchers, the Provo City Police Department, local church leaders and government officials. Beardall called the Provo City Dispatch Center approximately 23 times," a police booking affidavit states.
One of those calls was made while a ceremony for fallen officers was taking place at Provo City Hall.
"There were multiple elected officials with family members attending the ceremony. In the call, he told the dispatcher, 'You and the Provo Police Department are gonna get a nuclear … bomb on your state, lady!' Provo police began immediately searching the area for anything resembling a bomb and alerted all officers in the area of a potential bomb threat with instructions to detain Beardall if he attempted to enter the building," the affidavit states.
He again called dispatchers on June 1, 2024, and said "he was going to get a nuclear bomb ripping through Provo and that everyone in the Mormon church will be dead," according to the affidavit.
Beardall made similar calls multiple times over the next few months.
"The other 16 times that Beardall called dispatch he repeatedly harassed and verbally attacked dispatchers. He kept yelling at them and calling them terrorists and pedophiles," the affidavit alleges. "Each of the calls Beardall made were aggressive, hostile, and abusive. On seven specific phone calls to Provo's dispatch center, Anthony Beardall made threats to attack with nuclear bombs, kill church members and their leaders, or kill government officials."
Police say Beardall was previously able to avoid arrest by fleeing the country.
At the time of his arrest on Sunday, Beardall also had four active warrants on charges of making a terroristic threat, stalking and violating a protective order for similar behavior in other cases, according to court records.
