A New York man has been arrested after allegedly making a death threat against Georgia Senate GOP candidate Mike Collins and his son-in-law, the FBI and Georgia law enforcement officials announced Monday.
The FBI said on X that the agency, along with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Butts County Sheriff’s Office, arrested the suspect in Buffalo, New York.
The Butts County Sheriff’s Office identified the suspect as Anthony Lantrell Bennett of Buffalo. In a Facebook post, the sheriff’s office said Bennett was arrested and charged Friday with two counts of terroristic threats.
According to the sheriff’s office, the suspect admitted to threatening both men, and officials “determined the threat was connected to information in an online story that was not accurate or true.”
“State lines don’t protect those who threaten violence, and they do not stop the FBI and our law enforcement partners from pursuing them,” FBI Buffalo Special Agent-in-Charge Allen D. Davis II said in a statement. “Strong law enforcement partnerships are critical to our mission.”
Collins thanked law enforcement in a statement on X, saying he was “grateful to the FBI, the Butts County Sheriff’s Department, and all law enforcement partners for acting quickly to protect my family.”
The Republican congressman also suggested that his opponent, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., bore some of the blame.
“It’s become fashionable for leftist to say anything they want about their Republican opponents to try to irrationally and inaccurately paint them as monsters,” Collins wrote. “My opponent clearly likes to play that irresponsible game, and here we are. When you mix false accusations with inflammatory rhetoric, it fuels the lunatics who want to settle political disagreements with violence.”
Collins urged Ossoff to condemn political violence, saying the senator “should apologize, retract his false attacks, and campaign on the issues affecting Georgians.”
An Ossoff campaign spokesperson responded, “Senator Ossoff condemns all threats of violence.” Ossoff’s team has not said whether the two men have spoken since the incident.
Collins is looking to unseat Ossoff this fall, but he faces an uphill climb. A polling average of Georgia Senate surveys compiled by Decision Desk HQ shows Ossoff with a 9-point lead.
The Republican has also come under growing scrutiny as several of his former aides and relatives have been caught up in controversy. Among them is his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, who CNN’s KFile reported in July has previously shared antisemitic and white nationalist rhetoric.
Asked by reporters in August about his son-in-law, Collins distanced himself from the remarks.
“He doesn’t speak for me. I don’t speak for him. No one speaks for me, and I don’t speak for anyone else,” Collins said. “I condemn all forms of anti-Semitism. I don’t care what the source is.”
The arrest comes amid a troubling rise in political violence in recent years. That includes the near assassination of President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024, the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk in 2025 and the murder of a Minnesota state lawmaker in 2025.
