A former Maryland resident was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison Tuesday for making threatening calls to Capitol Hill.

Ade Salim Lilly, 35, pleaded guilty in May to interstate communication of a threat for an October 2021 call to a congressional office and a charge of repeated phone calls for over 200 calls to one member of Congress in February 2023.

Lilly was charged with eight counts in an indictment from November 2023 for a death threat and thousands of calls. In total, his telephone harassment campaign included approximately 12,000 telephone calls over the span of 19 months to more than 50 offices for members of Congress, according to prosecutors. He was arrested in Howard County in December 2023 and had arrest warrants in Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, according to court records.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Lilly to 13 months of incarceration followed by three years of supervised release, according to online court records.

“On October 21, 2022, defendant Lilly called from the State of Maryland into a Congressional office in Washington D.C. An employee of a member of Congress answered the phone. During this phone call, Defendant Lilly told the victim words to the effect of ‘I will kill you, I am going to run you over, I will kill you with a bomb or grenade’,” federal prosecutor Matthew Graves said in court documents.

Prosecutors recommended sentencing Lilly to 18 months of incarceration, arguing for a need to deter others from engaging in similarly threatening behavior. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger testified last year that threats against members of Congress had increased by approximately 400% over the previous six years. Prosecutors also asked that Lilly be barred from contacting a Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville, the Maryland chair of the Health and Government Operations, the Maryland speaker of the House of Delegates and 911 emergency services in Howard County.

“This is an election year, and more and more often, criticism of a political position or viewpoint crosses the First Amendment line and leads to true threats of violence,” prosecutors wrote. “The pervasive rise in threats against elected officials creates a real risk that expressions of violence will become normalized.”

Associated Press contributed to this article.