A Knoxville man indicted after he complained that he had been silenced by the “Trump gestapo” is giving up his fight against the federal case.

David Kerr – who went by the handle “resistor” on the social media platform Bluesky – has struck a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Knoxville, court records show.

Kerr, 68, has been behind bars since September when he was charged federally with two counts of transmitting a threat via the internet to injure U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents.

The charges stemmed from two comments Kerr made on other Blueksy users’ anti-ICE posts – “time to bear spray ICE” in June 2025 and “kill the ICE military police” in October 2025.

Assistant Federal Defender Nakeisha Jackson has said few people saw, “liked” or engaged with either the posts or Kerr’s comments.

Nearly a year went by before federal agents showed up at the home Kerr owns with his wife of 44 years, court records show. They told him to knock off his ICE rhetoric. He agreed and deactivated his Bluesky account.

There is no indication the agents considered Kerr a threat to public safety. Jackson said Kerr honored his agreement and ceased any social media commentary on ICE.

Two weeks after the agents’ visit, though, Kerr made a final social media post, writing on Facebook, “I’ve been silenced by the trump (sic) Gestapo!”

A month later, Kerr was indicted, arrested and labeled by federal prosecutors as a threat to public safety – so dangerous, they argued, he should remain imprisoned pending trial.

Jackson fought back, arguing Kerr was a law-abiding citizen, husband, father and homeowner with decades-long employment as a construction supervisor.

She also questioned the strength of the government’s case, noting Kerr did not target particular ICE agents or take steps to carry out threats or help others to carry them out. Kerr was, at most, a keyboard activist, never engaging in ICE protests or affiliating with any anti-ICE groups, Jackson said in court documents.

Jackson won round one, with U.S. Magistrate Judge Debra Poplin ruling that prosecutors failed to show Kerr was too dangerous to go free pending trial. She ordered Kerr to be freed – so long as he agreed to shut down all social media accounts.

In an extraordinary move, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Lewen demanded a stay of Poplin’s decision and appealed her ruling to U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan.

Varlan approved the stay. But just as the judge was poised to rule on Kerr’s freedom, Kerr late last month replaced Jackson with private defense attorney Jonathan Cooper, court records show.

Cooper quickly secured a plea deal for Kerr, records show.

Under the deal, Lewen is agreeing to drop the charge involving the June “bear spray ICE” post. The plea document also shows that Cooper secured an agreement that will ultimately help Kerr at sentencing, though the terms are not specified in the document.

Varlan still must approve the plea deal. It will be up to him to decide how much, if any, jail time Kerr must serve. The remaining charge carries a maximum penalty of five years. A sentencing hearing has not yet been set. Kerr remains jailed.

Jamie Satterfield is an investigative journalist covering crime, courts and the stories behind the headlines. She writes Let’s Talk: Law for KnoxTNToday, digging deeper to uncover the story behind the story.

Read more of Jamie Satterfield’s columns and learn more about her in her author bio on her KnoxTNToday author page. Follow her investigative reporting on Substack.

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