Over the course of our lives, we receive a great deal of advice from a variety of sources, some more welcome than others. Treat others the same way you’d like to be treated. Look both ways before crossing the street. Listen more than you speak. And, perhaps relevant to this blog, a piece of sage advice most famous for being sung by a Disney princess: Let it go.
Did ex-Tennessee Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Lawrence Strohmeyer fail to heed the words of Elsa from “Frozen”? A recently unsealed criminal complaint alleges he did. The ex-Tenn. AUSA charged with federal official murder threats will now be facing federal prosecutors instead of working with them. A federal grand jury returned a 12-count indictment for allegations that included threatening to murder three of his former bosses at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee, where he was fired in August 2024, along with members of their families.
While Strohmeyer hasn’t been convicted of any crimes so far, the complaint contains screenshots he allegedly made and may prove difficult to defend against. He’ll also have to contend with allegations of using an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to create “deepfake” nude images of one of his targets and threatening to use the results to “destroy her reputation.”
Strohmeyer’s alleged campaign of retributive terror may put him in danger of prison, but he’s already encountering consequences from the backlash. He started at a new law firm in January 2026, but his bio has been removed from the firm’s site.
“F**K Hammurabi I Will Make That Guy Look Like a Wimp”
Attorneys may decide to become an AUSA for any number of reasons. Some may have a federal career in mind, while others see it as a stepping stone to political ambitions or a spot in a lucrative private practice. Regardless of what the graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School's motivations might have been, Strohmeyer’s brief tenure in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office (M.D. Tenn.) may have short-circuited his intentions. Hired in August 2023, he was terminated about 12 months later. According to the complaint, he didn’t go quietly.
The case first drew the attention of Deputy U.S. Marshal Christian Marrero after the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office obtained an arrest warrant. Marrero’s ensuing fugitive investigation would uncover an even more disturbing set of messages.
Strohmeyer was originally accused of violating Tennessee’s Preventing Deepfake Images Act by using bikini photos in an AI platform to create a nude video and/or images of the victim without consent, which he then allegedly threatened to release to ruin her reputation. He also reportedly sent texts that said her children “were not off the table” and suggested he could ruin her life with “the press of a button or a modded AR-15 trigger.”
DUSM Marrero’s subsequent fugitive investigation next discovered threatening texts allegedly sent by Strohmeyer to three of his former superiors and their families in the M.D. Tennessee U.S. Attorney’s Office between March and June 2026, which are included in the criminal complaint. While the earlier text mostly promises retaliation for any further attacks against his reputation, the June texts are much more sinister in tone, including “Lots of kids dying from fentanyl these days” and “Lol I don’t even need to lift a finger. I know a couple of gangs that would love to meet [redacted] and [redacted]’s kids.”
Strohmeyer had taken a new position with a Boulder firm in January 2026. He was arrested in Colorado on August 3.
To Be Wronged Is Nothing Unless You Continue To Remember It
The indictment against Strohmeyer returned multiple felony counts of threats to murder former federal officials and transmitting interstate communications containing threats in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). The Tennessee sheriff’s office also obtained a state arrest warrant alleging a violation of the intimate-digital-depictions statute.
If convicted, he may end up with a lot of time to contemplate the art of letting go.
