Charges have been filed against a Fenton man who threatened to kill his co-workers.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton announced criminal charges against 57-year-old Stephen Anthony Challis who is alleged to have made threats via email to shoot and kill employees at Nexteer Automotive in Auburn Hills. Challis was arraigned Thursday with four felony counts; two counts of false report or threat of terrorism, and two counts of using a computer to commit a crime. He was released on $60,000 personal recognizance bond and placed on a tether at his home. According to investigators, Challis worked remotely from his Fenton home for Flex Live Smarter Corporation of Farmington Hills and had been working on a contracted project with Nexteer Automotive. Leyton said that after reading a report that the project they were working on would be delayed, Challis sent an email to 34 individuals saying he would be forced to kill one of them and instructed each to vote on who should be killed. He included a picture of a shotgun with the email. While police determined Challis didn’t own the gun pictured in the email, two rifles were recovered. Leyton said his office takes very seriously any threat to shoot and kill others and that the nation has experienced too many incidents of mass shootings in the workplace, schools and other locations and that anyone making such threats would be held accountable. He added that he would not second guess the intentions of an individual who makes such a threat. If convicted, Challis faces up to 20 years in prison.