Covid-19 Hoax on Facebook Gets Texas Man 15 Months in Prison

A Texas man has been sentenced to fifteen months in jail for posting hoaxes on Facebook that falsely claimed he had paid somebody with covid-19 to lick objects at two grocery shops in San Antonio, in line with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The 40-year-old man, recognized by prosecutors as Christopher Charles Perez, posted his hoaxes again in April 2020, in the course of the early months of the pandemic, and wished to scare folks away from visiting the shops, in line with the Justice Department. The messages had been circulated on Facebook and finally reported to the FBI.

Perez, who additionally goes by the title Christopher Robin, was convicted in June on two counts beneath 18 U.S.C. § 1038, which makes it a criminal offense to distribute false data and hoaxes associated to organic weapons. In this case, covid-19 was the “biological weapon” Perez was falsely claiming to make use of.

“PSA!! Yo rt HEB MERCADO! My homeboys cousin has covid19 and has licked every thing for past 2 days cause we paid him too [4 EMOTICONS],” Perez wrote on Facebook in April 2020, in line with courtroom paperwork. The courtroom submitting didn’t specify the emoticons Perez used.

“Big difference is we told him not to be these fucking idiots who record and post online… YOU’VE BEEN WARNED. HEB on nogalitos next ;)” Perez continued.

Perez apparently hoped to scare folks away from purchasing as a result of he thought it was too dangerous, in line with investigators, and adopted up with one other Facebook message.

“Lol…I did try to warn y’all but my homegirl changed my mind… mercado already is, nogalitos location next,” Perez wrote on Facebook.

The Department of Justice didn’t assume the messages had been a good suggestion, naturally. In reality, they noticed the entire thing as legal, as they’re wont to do.

“Trying to scare people with the threat of spreading dangerous diseases is no joking matter,” U.S. Attorney Ashley C. Hoff stated in an announcement. “This office takes seriously threats to harm the community and will prosecute them to the full extent of the law.”

The U.S., like a lot of the world, was reeling from covid-19 again in April 2020, and there was nice uncertainty about what the longer term held. The nation was reporting roughly 20,000 new instances every day, with a complete of 1,012,583 instances of covid-19 and 58,355 deaths from the illness by the finish of April. Infamously, Elon Musk stated there’d be “close to zero” new instances by that point.

In October 2021, the U.S. is doing a lot worse, even with covid-19 vaccines at our disposal. The nation is reporting about 103,000 new instances every day, with a complete of over 43.8 million instances and greater than 703,000 deaths because the pandemic started. And but it’s unusual to assume that anybody could be criminally prosecuted for spreading pretend details about covid-19 right here in late 2021. Fox News does it every single day.

“Those who would threaten to use covid-19 as a weapon against others will be held accountable for their actions, even if the threat was a hoax,” FBI San Antonio Division Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs stated in an announcement.

“Perez’s actions were knowingly designed to spread fear and panic and today’s sentencing illustrates the seriousness of this crime. The FBI would like to thank our law enforcement partners for their help in this case.”