Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in her Augusta office on Dec. 29, 2023, the morning after announcing her decision to bar Donald Trump from the presidential primary ballot in Maine. A false report of a break-in prompted police to rush to her home hours after this photo was taken. She was not home at the time. Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald

Two European men have been charged with making the fake 911 call that prompted police to rush to the home of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in December 2023 as part of a wave of threats and false “swatting” reports targeting government officials across the country.

Bellows, a Democrat who serves as Maine’s top elections official, reported Dec. 29, 2023, that her home had been swatted in an apparent attempt to intimidate her. The incident came as Bellows was in the national news and facing intense backlash for ruling that Donald Trump was not qualified to appear on the 2024 primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

While it appeared at the time that partisan anger over her ruling could have prompted the swatting attack, court records show the defendants, who are citizens of Serbia and Romania, were mostly interested in disrupting the U.S. political system and creating discord for officials from both parties. The false reports targeted both conservatives and liberals, ranging from members of Congress to state legislators, according to court documents.

No charges had been publicly announced in the Maine case, but Bellows told lawmakers this month that she received a victim impact notice in November alerting her that the perpetrators of the incident had been charged by federal prosecutors.

Her reference to the case was contained in an annual report Bellows is required to file about threats to public officials, though it did not contain details, including who had been charged, with what crimes and by what agency.

On Thursday, Bellows’ office confirmed that the incident is part of a larger federal case filed in Washington, D.C., for which defendants Thomasz Szabo, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, of Serbia, are each facing 34 charges of conspiracy and making threats.

“I deeply appreciate the hard work of state and federal law enforcement to investigate the swatting of my home on December 29, 2023,” Bellows said in a written statement. “Swatting is an increasing problem impacting not just elected officials like myself but also targeting schools and even polling places.

“While the communications are hoaxes, the harm is real. The perpetrators seeking to scare people away from public service and undermine our collective sense of safety and trust in one another must be held accountable. Criminals will not deter me from keeping my oath to the Constitution and the rule of law,” she said.

An attorney for Szabo did not respond to a phone message or email Thursday asking about Szabo’s involvement in the Maine case. No attorney is listed in court records for Radovanovic, and it was not clear if he has representation or when he might appear in court.

Szabo is scheduled for a court hearing March 27 in Washington.

Two days after her decision to bar Trump from the Maine Republican primary ballot — a decision that was ultimately overturned following a U.S. Supreme court ruling on a similar case out of Colorado — Bellows reported that her home had been swatted on a Friday night while she and her husband were not home.

Bellows said at the time that her address had been posted online and that someone had then called police to report a break-in and request a strong police presence.

Maine State Police responded to Bellows’ home in Manchester for the call, which came in around 8:15 p.m. from an unknown male caller.

State troopers conducted an exterior and interior check at Bellows’ request, but no one was inside the home and nothing suspicious was found, a state police spokesperson said at the time.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced in August that Szabo and Radovanovic had been charged in swatting attempts against 40 private victims and 61 official victims, including members of Congress, cabinet-level executive branch officials, senior officials of federal law enforcement agencies and state officials.

An indictment handed down in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia also alleges that the pair committed bomb threats against four victim businesses, four victim religious institutions and one victim university.

However, neither the announcement nor the indictment include the names of the victims in the attacks, which took place from around December 2020 to January 2024.

Some victims have acknowledged they are among the victims, and in some cases dates and other details have been matched up to swatting reports made by officials.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, have publicly acknowledged being swatted on Christmas Day 2023, though it’s not clear if they were among the victims in this case, the Washington Post reported in August.

Others who were reportedly targeted included Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, and Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Trump’s federal election interference case, according to Newsweek.

The charges come after law enforcement agencies around the country experienced a surge in swatting and false bomb threats in late December 2023 through January 2024 targeting high-profile public figures, religious institutions and other victims, according to an affidavit filed in the case by Special Agent Levon Epps of the U.S. Secret Service.

The Secret Service used phone and internet records to trace the calls to two Google Voice accounts that they found were involved in about 100 similar calls to government and police phone numbers and that involved false reports of emergencies such as a homicide or kidnapping or a bomb threat.

Last winter, with the help of law enforcement in Serbia and Romania, the Secret Service was then able to track down Szabo and Radovanovic. They conducted interviews with the men in which they confessed to making hoax reports and swatting calls. After hearing audio recordings of several of the calls, Radovanovic identified himself as the caller, Epps wrote.

Radovanovic also said a third party, a juvenile who is not named in the affidavit, was involved in selecting the victims and dialing the calls using an audio-sharing application.

Radovanovic said he had done no more than 20 swatting calls, though Epps said he believed that to be false based on Google Voice records and chat group messages.

It appears from the affidavit that the callers targeted both conservative and liberal officials. In one chat group message, Epps wrote that Szabo captured an image of a social media post by a third party commenting that conservative influencers were being swatted, followed by a list of four specific social media handles. Under the image, he wrote, “all our victims.”

Later that same day, Szabo told Radovanovic to swat a specific person he described as “a libtard zoomer” who “makes TikTok videos for democrats.”

Radovanovic responded, “What you want to swat him?” and Szabo replied, “need the libtards to cry too. we are not on any side.”

Epps wrote in the affidavit that a few days later, on Dec. 26, the pair exchanged messages about having gone on a “swatting rampage” and “creating massive havoc in america. $500,000+ in taxpayers wasted in just two days.”

Staff Writer Emily Allen contributed to this article.