Lewes Man Arrested after Threats of Violence to a Laurel Business
Image courtesy Laurel PD
A Lewes man has been arrested by Laurel Police after an investigation into threats made towards employees of a local business. Staff at the Insurance Market contacted Laurel Police Thursday afternoon after a series of disturbing phone calls from a customer identified as “Brian.” Police say the man allegedly became disorderly and used obscene profanity towards an employee that escalated to racial and religious slurs and threats of violence.
The owner of the business contacted Brian and informed him that his business would no longer be accepted and threats from Brian continued.
Police investigation showed Brian was 51 year old Brian Rightsell of Lewes and investigators secured an arrest warrant for Rightsell and charged him with the following criminal charges:
- Disorderly Conduct
- Harassment
- Terroristic Threatening
- Hate Crime
With assistance from the Delaware State Police, Rightsell was located and taken into custody without incident and subsequently turned over to the Laurel Police Department for processing.
Rightsell was arraigned through Justice of the Peace Court 2 and released on his own recognizance bond. As part of his conditions of release, Rightsell was ordered to have no contact with the victims or any locations of The Insurance Market.
The Laurel Police Department takes threats and acts of intimidation seriously and remains committed to ensuring the safety of our residents and local businesses.
The issuance of a warrant for the arrest of a subject is merely a showing of probable cause by the investigating agency related to the above incident. All subjects, once arrested, are considered to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.