Official found not guilty of threatening former FHFA director

The man accused of threatening to kill former Acting Director Edward DeMarco was found not guilty.

The man accused of threatening the life of a former Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) official was found not guilty.

Richard Hornsby, the FHFA’s chief operating officer, was charged with threatening to kidnap or injure a person after allegedly threatening to shoot former FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco in April.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Judge Juliet McKenna of D.C. Superior Court on Thursday found Hornsby not guilty of the two charges, after a trial that started Tuesday, according to court records. Marlon Griffith, a lawyer for Hornsby, told the Journal that the allegations were based on an employee who was upset about an internal reorganization.

Hornsby allegedly threatened to shoot DeMarco after making “increasing threatening comments” over the course of a few weeks, according to police reports. The FHFA’s inspector general was notified of the threats following an April 28 incident in which DeMarco was “escorted to a secure location following a report of a threat,” court documents allege. An unnamed FHFA employee allegedly said that Hornsby had threatened to harm DeMarco and then kill himself.

The threat allegedly occurred two days before DeMarco's retirement from the agency. An unnamed FHFA employee said the threats against DeMarco stemmed from disagreements about Hornsby's job performance ratings. Hornsby was placed on leave from the FHFA when the charges were initially filed, but allowed to retain his title.

Judge Michael McCarthy ruled in June that there was probable cause to send the allegations to a grand jury, according to a Credit Union Times report.

Hornsby joined the FHFA in 2011 after 26 years at the Federal Bank of San Francisco.