Federal agents have arrested a woman accusing her of sending emails threatening to shoot Donald Trump and his son Barron, according to federal prosecutors and a criminal complaint.

Tracy Marie Fiorenza, 41, from the Chicago area, was arrested on Monday morning on a charge of transmitting threats to kill or injure, according to the US attorney’s office in the city.

The case was filed earlier this month in US District Court in southern Florida.

“I will state that I will shoot Donald Trump Sr AND Barron Trump straight in the face at any opportunity I get!,” Fiorenza said in a May 21 email to the head of an educational institution in the Palm Beach area of Florida, according to an affidavit accompanying the complaint.

Mr Trump’s primary residence is in Palm Beach.

Fiorenza allegedly wrote a similar email on June 5, saying she would “slam a bullet” into Barron Trump “with his father IN SELF DEFENSE!”, according to the affidavit submitted by a US Secret Service agent.

Neither the headmaster nor the school where the emails were allegedly sent was named in the charging documents.

CBS News Chicago reported that Fiorenza made an initial appearance on Monday afternoon in US District Court in Chicago, and a judge said she must go to the district court in Florida to answer the charges. The judge will decide at a hearing on Wednesday how she will be transferred.

Agents interviewed Fiorenza at the agency’s Chicago field on June 14, during which she was shown copies of the emails, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit says she lives in Plainfield, Illinois, a south-west Chicago suburb.