Man drove across country with weapons, made threats after targeting Catholic monastery, officials say

Investigators in Orange County have arrested an Alabama man for making criminal threats against a Catholic church in Silverado Canyon, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said this week.

Authorities were first alerted by officials from St. Michael’s Abbey on Silverado Canyon Road last week about a man, later identified as Joshuah Michael Richardson, sending potentially threatening emails.

Then Richardson, 38, showed up at the church in person and made additional threats, the sheriff’s department said. When a priest at the church called authorities, Richard was taken into custody without an incident.

But what investigators found was alarming: Richardson had body armor, high-capacity magazines, brass knuckles and knives in his car. "I honestly feel something very, very serious was pre-empted. He brought enough paraphernalia that's associated with violence that he's considering something to cause great hard to people," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.