A California teenager pleaded guilty Wednesday to swatting a Florida mosque, among other organizations and persons, federal officials said.
Alan W. Filion, 18, of Lancaster, California, pleaded guilty to four counts of making interstate threats to injure another person, according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. He faces up to five years in prison for each count. The sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
Swatting is the technique of making a prank call to emergency services to summon a large number of armed police officers to a certain location. Bomb threats date back decades in the United States, but swatting has grown in popularity in recent years as individuals and groups target celebrities and politicians.
“For more than a year, Alan Filion sent hundreds of bogus threats to religious organizations, schools, government leaders, and other innocent victims, claiming that mass shootings, bombings, and other horrific acts were impending. ”
He caused widespread fear and chaos and will now face the consequences of his actions,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated in a news statement.
According to FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, Filion sought to inflict as much harm as possible and attempted to profit from the action by selling swatting services for a fee.
“Swatting endangers first responders and victims wastes valuable time and resources, and instills fear in communities.” “The FBI will continue to collaborate with partners to aggressively investigate and hold accountable anyone involved in these activities,” Abbate stated.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Filion made more than 375 swatting and threat calls between August 2022 and January 2024. According to prosecutors, he made calls claiming to have hidden bombs in certain locations or threatening to detonate bombs and/or carry out mass shootings there.
He targeted religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government figures, and individuals throughout the United States. Filion was 16 when he made the majority of the calls.
Filion also pled guilty to making three other threatening calls, including one in October 2022 to a public high school in the Western District of Washington in which he threatened to perform a mass shooting and claimed to have buried bombs around the building.
He also pled guilty to making a May 2023 call to a historically black college and university in the Northern District of Florida, claiming to have planted bombs in the walls and ceilings of campus dorms that would detonate in approximately an hour.
Another incident occurred in July 2023, when he called a local police department dispatch number in the Western District of Texas, falsely identifying himself as a senior federal law enforcement officer, giving the dispatcher the officer’s residential address, claiming to have killed the officer’s mother, and threatening to kill any responding police officers.
