A violent “Antifa extremist” and “transgender” suspect who allegedly posted a graphic assassination threat against Rep. Nancy Mace is now charged with attempted murder — months after prosecutors ignored warnings that the suspect was dangerous, a failure Mace says allowed a preventable shooting to happen.
Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, said the arrest of Michael Richard Fadich, who goes by the name “Rem Heathen,” came months after she reported what she described as a clear death threat that prosecutors declined to pursue.
In May 2025, Fadich posted a graphic on Instagram depicting a gun pointed directly at Mace’s face.
“The message was unmistakable: he wanted me dead,” Mace said. Her office reported the threat to authorities, but no charges were filed, she said.
“Prosecutors did nothing,” Mace said Wednesday. “Now, eight months later, he is charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting someone in Portland just last month. A man is in the hospital because the system failed to stop a violent extremist when it had the chance.”
Portland police say the attempted murder charge stems from a December shooting in the Oregon city. Officers responding to reports of gunfire later found a man suffering from gunshot wounds behind an apartment complex. The victim was transported to the hospital with serious injuries that were not believed to be life-threatening.
Police said the suspect, whom they referred to as Heathen, was among the individuals interviewed during the investigation and that multiple firearms, including a rifle and handguns, were seized.
A grand jury later indicted Heathen on charges including attempted murder, assault, unlawful use of a weapon, and coercion. Heathen was arrested Jan. 8 in California and transferred to custody in Oregon. A second suspect was also arrested on weapons and coercion charges.
Heathen is in custody at the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, where jail records list the suspect as a female.
“This blood is on the hands of every prosecutor who looked at this threat and looked away,” Mace said. “I pray for the safety of the women he’s housed with.”
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Mace said Fadich’s social media accounts were filled with Antifa propaganda, celebrations of violence, and explicit threats, adding that the suspect posed with Antifa flags and owned an AR-15 and multiple handguns.
“Every warning sign was there,” she said. “Nothing was done.”
Mace echoed those concerns in a post on X, writing that a transgender Antifa member who made violent death threats against her had now been arrested on attempted murder charges.
“To every prosecutor who declined to act after we reported this man: you had the chance to stop him, and you didn’t,” Mace wrote. “And someone took a bullet for it.”
She added that she would not accept “a system enabling violence,” saying justice “needs to mean something again.”
“When prosecutors do their job, lives are saved,” Mace said, citing another case in which a suspect accused of threatening her remains jailed. “But when they fail, like with Fadich, innocent people pay the price.”
Mace said she is asking the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate why federal prosecutors failed to act on the alleged threat against her and whether Fadich should face federal charges for threatening a member of Congress.
“To the violent extremists,” Mace said, “your threats won’t silence us.”
