Man Charged With Threatening to Kill Obama Appears in Court

MIAMI, Aug. 7 -- A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail.

A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself."

Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1 and 2 but did not visit the South Florida area.

Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head," the Secret Service said.

Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against Bush.

Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined to comment. The Obama campaign also declined to comment on the alleged threat.