After entering a guilty plea in federal court on Wednesday, a California adolescent who is accused of being a “serial swatter” faces a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison for making threats that are directed toward other states.
According to the announcement made by the Department of Justice, Alan Filion, who is 18 years old and is from Lancaster, California, entered a guilty plea to four counts of making interstate threats to hurt the person of another.
In addition, according to the prosecution, Filion attempted to earn a profit by collecting money to make the swatting calls.
“For well over a year, Alan Filion targeted religious institutions, schools, government officials and other innocent victims with hundreds of false threats of imminent mass shootings, bombings and other violent crimes,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco stated in her statement.
“He caused profound fear and chaos and now will face the consequences of his actions,” Monaco stated in his statement.
Filion will be punished during a hearing that has not yet been scheduled in the United States District Court for Middle Florida in Orlando. The maximum penalty for each crime is five years in prison, and Filion will be sentenced during the hearing.
Filion stated in a plea deal that he made more than 375 threatening and swatting calls between the months of August 2022 and January 2023. These calls were directed toward individuals, locations, and government officials around the country.
According to the Department of Justice, he made the claims that he had planted bombs and threatened to either explode bombs or commit mass killings while he was making the swatting calls.
Filion “not only intended to cause as much harm as possible, but he also attempted to profit from these criminal activities by offering swatting-for-a-fee services,” it was stated by the Deputy Director of the FBI, Paul Abbate.
“Swatting poses severe dangers to first responders and victims, wastes significant time and resources, and creates fear in communities,” Abbate stated in his statement.
“large-scale deployment of police and emergency services to the targeted locations,” as stated by the Department of Justice, was the primary objective of the calls that were made.
Investigators were told by Filion that he initially began placing swatting calls as a joke. However, he then decided to try to make a profit from it by collecting a charge and posting advertisements on social media platforms selling his swatting services.
Filion was taken into custody by law officials on January 18 in California, based on state charges that had been brought against him in Florida.
The threat that he made against a religious institution in Sanford, Florida, in May of 2023 led to the filing of charges in the state of Florida.
This threat was made by Filion, who stated that he possessed an illegally modified AR-15, a Glock 17 pistol, pipe bombs, and Molotov cocktails, and that he intended to use them to “kill everyone,” according to the Department of Justice.
During his plea of guilty to federal charges brought under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, Filion admitted to placing the swatting call as well as hundreds of other calls.
Local law enforcement in the states of Florida, Washington, and California assisted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service in their investigation of the case.
Following his arrest in January, Filion was extradited to Florida, where he will be brought before the United States District Court for Middle Florida to face charges.