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A Yorktown man was fined $250 Monday after pleading guilty to calling Attorney General Mark R. Herring’s public comment line and leaving a message with profane language on the voicemail because of Herring’s support of same-sex marriage.

James Timothy Berry was initially charged with threatening over the phone, a Class 1 misdemeanor, but the charge was later reduced to a “curse and abuse” misdemeanor in exchange for a guilty plea, said Cpt. Randy Howard with Capitol Police.

“The voice mail contained some threatening language, but it did not rise to the level that we would press felony charges. It was an obscene, vulgar message,” Howard said.

Berry called Herring’s office on Feb. 5 – one day after the attorney general had attended a hearing at the United States District Court in Norfolk in Bostic v. Rainey, a federal court case aimed at overturning Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban.

At the hearing, Solicitor General Stuart Raphael of the Attorney General’s Office sided with lawyers for two couples trying to overturn the 2006 amendment to the state Constitution, framing the ban as discrimination and a violation of their clients' right to marry.