Texas man tied to neo-Nazis accused of threatening district attorney in Tennessee

A North Texas man who was part of a group passing out antisemitic flyers in Fort Worth in 2023 has been charged with threatening to lynch a district attorney in Tennessee.

David Bloyed of Frost allegedly threatened to lynch Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, District Attorney David Funk in a series of posts on the social media platform Telegram, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Bloyed’s threats came after a July 14 protest in downtown Nashville organized by the neo-Nazi group the Goyim Defense League. This same group passed out flyers outside Dickies Arena, Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum and the Waxahachie Civic Center in 2023.

A member of the Goyim Defense League got into a fight with an employee of a Nashville bar and was arrested, according to a press release from the Justice Department.

The unnamed group member allegedly hit the bar employee repeatedly with a metal flagpole that had a swastika flag attached, the press release said.

An account associated with the Goyim Defense League posted a picture of District Attorney Funk with the caption, “Getting the rope,” according to the press release.

The account also allegedly said the bar employee would be put on the “rope list,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Tennessee Middle District Criminal Court.

FBI agents found a separate account on the social media platform Gab with identical posts to those on the Telegram platform, according to the criminal complaint.

Agents later identified the account as Bloyed’s after subpoenaing Gab user information and discovering the account was registered to an email connected to the North Texas resident, according to the criminal complaint.

The complaint also alleges the IP address used to set up the Gab account was connected to a property in Frost owned by Bloyed. Frost is 20 miles northeast of Hillsboro in Navarro County.

“In a functioning democracy, we simply cannot tolerate threats of violence against elected officials,” said United States Attorney Henry C. Leventis in the press release, adding that the charges illustrated the Justice Department’s commitment to protecting public servants and upholding the rule of law.

Bloyed did not immediately respond to a phone call from the Star-Telegram requesting comment.

If convicted, he could spend five years in federal prison.

Bloyed was part of a group that passed out antisemitic flyers outside Dickies Arena in August 2023 and Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum in October of the same year.

Fort Worth Police issued trespass warnings to Bloyed and three others.

Speaking under a fake name, he later spoke at an Aug. 15, 2023, Fort Worth City Council meeting to argue that posting flyers was protected under the First Amendment.

Bloyed had an encounter with Waxahachie police in November 2023 when authorities were called to the Civic Center after receiving reports of a man passing out antisemitic flyers outside a gun show.

Police Lt. Joshua Oliver, who responded to the call, told the Star-Telegram in November 2023 that the man later identified as Bloyed was not physically combative, but was described as belligerent.

Bloyed later placed a call to the Waxahachie Police Department to complain about Oliver, who is Black.

Bloyed then took to Gab to complain about the incident and wrote that Oliver was “half way to the rope” before referring to him using a racial slur.

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(Staff writer Emily Brindley contributed to this report.)

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