“Three men allegedly conspired with admitted ‘swatter’ Tyler Barriss to make hoax reports of bombs and murders to police departments, high schools and a convention center across the United States, according to three indictments unsealed today,” reports America’s Department of Justice.
An anonymous reader quotes NBC News:
The three people charged — Neal Patel, 23, of Des Plaines, Illinois; Tyler Stewart, 19, of Gulf Breeze, Florida; and Logan Patten, 19, of Greenwood, Missouri — are not accused in the “swatting” call allegedly made by another man that preceded the police shooting of Andrew Finch, a 28, in Wichita on Dec. 28, 2017. But they are accused of asking the suspect in the fatal Kansas case, Tyler Barriss, through Twitter direct messages to make false reports of bombs or threats of shootings that would trigger a law enforcement response and the evacuation of buildings against other targets, including a high school and a Dallas video game tournament….
Patel allegedly conspired with Barriss to make false reports to police in Milford, Connecticut, in December of 2017, and to make a false bomb threat targeting a video game convention in Dallas, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Stewart is accused of conspiring with Barriss to make two false bomb threats about a high school in Gurnee, Illinois, in early December of 2017, and Patten is charged with hiring Barriss to “swat” people in Indiana and Ohio, also in December of 2017, and of scheming with Barriss to “swat” a high school in Missouri, according to prosecutors.
After this week’s arrests, the three men each face up to 15 years in federal prison. Patel allegedly also used “unauthorized” credit cards to pay Barriss — and now faces two more bank fraud charges which each carry up to 30 years in federal prison.
The article also notes that the 25-year-old who actually made the calls — and the call which led to a fatal shooting in Wichita — “has agreed to serve a sentence of between 20 and 25 years in federal prison.” And the two gamers involved in the dispute which led to that shooting have also been criminally charged.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot