A former FBI agent turned conservative provocateur has been ordered to stay away from Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, whom he is accused of assaulting during a national law enforcement conference earlier this year in Reno, a sheriff's spokesman confirmed Friday.
In a statement, the Sheriff's Office said that a Hennepin County judge granted a restraining order against the retired agent, John Guandolo, requiring him to stay away from Stanek.
"The Hennepin County District Court has issued a Harassment Restraining Order against Guandolo," the statement read. "The criminal investigation is being conducted by the Washoe County Sheriff's Office" in Nevada.
A copy of the July 18 order, which was first reported by Imagine 2050, a left-leaning blog, was not available Friday.
Reached by phone Friday, Stanek, who serves as the second vice president of the National Sheriffs' Association, declined to comment.
The order revolves around a confrontation between the two men on June 28 at the annual sheriffs' conference in Reno. Details of the incident were unavailable, but the Sheriff's Office said that Stanek was "physically assaulted" by Guandolo, who was later cited for battery. An investigation is ongoing.
Guandolo, who resigned from the bureau in 2008 and lives in Dallas, has been on the speaking circuit and founded Understanding the Threat, a consulting firm that is "dedicated to providing strategic and operational threat-focused consultation, education, and training" for law enforcement, according to its website.
He has come under fire in recent years for his controversial anti-Muslim views. He once accused former CIA Director John Brennan in a radio interview of secretly converting to Islam and later suggested that a Muslim college professor had ties to terrorism, a claim that was widely debunked, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A recent blog post on his website is titled "Civilization Jihad, Propaganda, and Ignorance." Last October, he wrote a post titled "In This War Minnesota's Twin Cities Are Lost" that was critical of local officials, calling out Stanek by name.
A message sent to Guandolo's Twitter account on Friday was not immediately answered.
Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 Twitter: @StribJany
