(A version of this story appeared in The Islander newspaper)

By Michael Donoghue, Vermont News First

A career criminal from Grand Isle County, who is facing aggravated domestic assault charges, has been arrested in the Virgin Islands on a federal charge of making death threats to Vermont prosecutor Doug DiSabito.

Todd R. Hoyte, 54, is wanted for knowingly making multiple threats to DiSabito over the phone last summer, federal court records show.

Hoyte, who is also known as Todd King, is due to appear in U.S. District Court in St. Thomas, V.I. at 2 p.m. Thursday (today) for his initial hearing and for a detention motion.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Natasha L. Baker noted in court papers that Hoyte is a fugitive that “has spent at least 35 of his 55 years committing egregious crimes and disrespecting the criminal justice system. Defendant has threatened to kill civilians, law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges.”

Baker added Hoyte has been listed in the National Criminal Information Center as a violent person and a threat to law enforcement.

“Defendant has been convicted of rape, assault, intimidation, threats, breaking and entering, leaving the scene of an accident and more. Defendant has been arrested at least 34 times,” she wrote.

Baker noted there are at least three outstanding arrest warrants in Vermont, along with the new federal warrant.

The federal arrest warrant was issued on Oct. 15, 2024, but remained under seal until this week when the FBI took Hoyte into custody in St. Thomas, V.I. on Tuesday, officials said.

Hoyte lived on Allen Road in Grand Isle until he recently relocated to the Virgin Islands. He also had a home and business on U.S. 7 in Milton.

He has a long history of making other threats to now retired Judge A. Gregory Rainville, former Attorney General T.J. Donovan and members of the Franklin County State’s Attorney’s Office, records show.

Hoyte was initially facing charges of aggravated domestic assault in Grand Isle County where DiSabito has been the elected State’s Attorney since 2014, records show.

DiSabito also has invoked the habitual offender statute which means Hoyte faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Besides the initial domestic assault case filed in November 2022, a felony charge of obstruction of justice was added in August 2024 for threats made to DiSabito, records show.

That felony obstruction charge means Hoyte is facing a second possible life sentence as a potential habitual offender, if convicted.

Hoyte has a lengthy criminal record, including at least three prior felony convictions that make him eligible for a habitual offender designation: child rape in 1990, assault and robbery with a deadly weapon in 1999 and intimidation of a witness in 2012, according to the habitual offender charge.

Hoyte also was charged with misdemeanor counts of criminal threatening of a public official and violation of conditions of release for threatening behavior, court records show.

Franklin County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Diane C. Wheeler has been handling the three newest state charges from 2024 since DiSabito is the crime victim.

Hoyte has not been happy that he is the focus of a state criminal prosecution, according to the FBI.

Special Agent Eric Boyce, who has been the acting statewide supervisor for the FBI in Vermont, filed in October a court affidavit that said DiSabito had received more than a dozen voice mails with threats to kill and injure him.

The FBI lodged Hoyte at the Alexander A. Farrelly Criminal Justice Center in St. Thomas, V.I. on Tuesday pending his federal court hearing Thursday, a spokesman told The Islander.

Hoyte will have the right to contest his identity and his removal back to Vermont.

The FBI said DiSabito initially filed a complaint with the Vermont State Police in July 2024 after multiple phone threats. By the time the FBI prepared to file the criminal complaint in court in October, DiSabito had received at least a dozen phone threats, Boyce said.

The threats, which were outlined by Boyce in his six-page affidavit, contained obscene, derogatory and homophobic violent messages.

The caller left one message for DiSabito that said once he was done prosecuting the defendant, the state’s attorney would find himself as a target, Boyce noted in his affidavit.

“I want your job. I want you working at Dunkin Donuts …” the caller said in one of the more milder calls.”

Most of the threats listed in court records are unprintable in a newspaper.