It may not be a story you’ll hear about if you watch America’s “fair and balanced” news network.

In an interview on a California ABC News affiliate, the mother of a man arrested for threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) blamed Fox News for exacerbating her son’s mental illness, saying it encouraged his behavior.

“Greg frequently gets in with a group of people that have really radical ideas and that are not consistent with myself or the rest of the family, which gets him into problems,” the 83-year-old mother of the accused man, Eleanor Giusti, said. “I say Fox News, or all of those that are really radical, and he, that’s where he comes from.”

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Gregory Giusti was arrested Wednesday after threating the House Speaker over healthcare legislation. The 48-year-old man has a history of run-ins with the law, and was arrested in 2004 for threatening a train conductor’s life after he was caught trying to evade the fare.

He’s also the subject of a lawsuit by a San Francisco church which alleges he has engaged in a “campaign of harassment” of church members, and has been convicted of petty theft and welfare fraud.

His mother told ABC her son has a history of mental illness, and didn’t think he’d actually carry out his threat.

This video is from KGO, broadcast April 7, 2010.





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