[Jack.Kerr]

Searching for commonalities among all these psychotic threat makers. Hmm......

Suspect's mother faults Fox News for son's alleged threats against Nancy Pelosi on health care

Friday, April 9th 2010, 8:28 AM

SAN FRANCISCO - Gregory Giusti, charged with making threatening calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, cried Thursday during his first court appearance.

The suspect's mom, Eleanor Giusti, said her son may have gotten worked up over health care reform listening to Fox News.

"Greg frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas ... which gets him into problems," she told KGO-TV. "I say Fox News, or all of those that are really radical, and he, that's where he comes from."

Giusti, 48, wept when a federal judge refused to release him to a halfway house. He was held without bail while his mental condition is reviewed.

Giusti's arrest came a day after Charles Wilson was busted in Yakima, Wash., for making 16 crank calls wishing for - and in some cases promising - Democratic Sen. Patty Murray's violent death for supporting President Obama's health care bill.

Pelosi herself worried aloud last fall that the overheated emotions on display in the health care fight could trigger violence.

Giusti has been in trouble before. In 2004, he received a one-year jail sentence for threatening to kill a train conductor.