An ex-Reston man will spend more than two years in federal prison after making various threats to the life of President Donald Trump and other government officials on social media.
Valeriy Kouznetsov, 41, was sentenced yesterday (Wednesday) to two years and four months behind bars after admitting to making the threats last summer, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
In a sworn affidavit, it is alleged that Kouznetsov posted at least five separate threats on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) between February and May 2025.
Kouznetsov allegedly threatened to kill Trump on April 17 of that year, writing “you are a hopeless and helpless American b—h I will murder all you filthy rats[.]”
Other posts made by an account connected to Kouznetsov mention “7/13,” assumed to be a reference to July 13, 2024, when a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
According to the affidavit, Kouznetsov has a prior conviction for a similar incident that occurred in July 2020, where he made threats to employees at the short-lived Trump International Hotel in D.C. His statements allegedly included that he would “stab [Trump] in the heart with a knife” and “that he would cut off the President’s head if he wasn’t given what was owed to him” during Trump’s first term.
For that incident, Kouznetsov was sentenced to 27 months in prison. He was released in 2023.
According to court documents, Kouznetsov resided in Reston at the time the most recent threats were made before relocating to South Carolina last spring.
