https://www.nbcnews.com/politi...atting-in-rcna136677

A California teenager accused of being behind a flurry of swatting incidents across the country targeting schools and the homes of FBI agents has been arrested in connection with a swatting attempt at a Florida mosque last year, according to court documents filed by state prosecutors.

Alan Winston Filion, 17, was arrested last month at his home in Lancaster, California, and extradited to Florida on Tuesday, court documents say. He was charged as an adult on four felonies, including charges related to false reporting that triggered law enforcement response.

Filion entered a not guilty plea to the charges. He is being held without bail at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility.

Filion is allegedly behind hundreds of swatting incidents across the country targeting high schools, historically Black colleges and the homes of FBI agents, according to a motion filed by the government to secure Filion’s detention in the mosque case. He even allegedly targeted his own home.

In May of last year, deputies from the Seminole County law enforcement responded to a caller who said he was armed with a handgun and explosives and was entering the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida, to carry out a mass shooting, according to county records.

Upon their arrival, officers said they saw a woman and her two children at the building’s entrance and identified the call as a hoax after speaking with them, records show.

According to newly unsealed court documents obtained by NBC News, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI have tracked Filion’s posts on Telegram offering up his swatting services, as well as recordings of swatting calls. They allege he was responsible for hundreds of swatting incidents, including in Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. The swatting attempts allegedly have included bomb threats at high schools and a nongovernmental organization that researches extremism.

more at link

(Everyone gets the presumption of innocence but it sounds like the agencies did their homework) - there should be serious jail time if convicted. Swatting could easily result in death/injury of homeowners by police expecting the worst or by an armed homeowner defending himself/family when a door is kicked in.

It has resulted in deaths.

quote:

Originally posted by mdblanton:
(Everyone gets the presumption of innocence but it sounds like the agencies did their homework) - there should be serious jail time if convicted. Swatting could easily result in death/injury of homeowners by police expecting the worst or by an armed homeowner defending himself/family when a door is kicked in.

Glad they are treating him as an adult.

Not so funny now, is it, you little punk?

He deserves to be under the jail in the basement. What an evil person to do such a thing,knowing people's lives are at stake.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
Glad they are treating him as an adult.

Not so funny now, is it, you little punk?

.
AMEN!

He looks like a tool. Hope he rots in prison a good while.

Can he only be charged at the location where he initiated the calls…
Or could he be charged by each jurisdiction where the actual swat was carried out?

So he's accused of multiple swattings, yet arrested for one on a mosque?

That's curious. Not really.

This behavior is pathological to say the least, and best dealt with by a long period of incarceration.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
So he's accused of multiple swattings, yet arrested for one on a mosque?

That's curious. Not really.

No, it’s not. Gonna guess that the mosque was the one they could prove enough in a jurisdiction that wouldn’t fuck around with him.

SWATting is the same as attempted murder and should be prosecuted as such.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
SWATting is the same as attempted murder and should be prosecuted as such.

I agree.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
...the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI have tracked Filion’s posts on Telegram offering up his swatting services

Looks like he might have been paid to make some of these calls. It was a source of income for him.
The twisted enjoyment he got was just a bonus.

Hope Bubba in prison makes you his bitch. Using LE for your own amusement when they risk their lives everyday. Someone above said this little Timmy’s actions left people dead. No words. Wish the guillotine was still an option for you Timmy. You deserve it.

Dumb-fuck adolescent neckbeard saw it as a game, then took it up a notch by making it a business.

Shitheads like this are going to be more common as online mischievousness will only increase, prosecutors would be best advised to seek the maximum punishment in order to set a precedent. We can only hope the presiding judge sees this as well and doesn't toss-out evidence or, attempts to minimize jail time.

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Someone above said this little Timmy’s actions left people dead.

No. Someone above said swatting has left people dead.

quote:

Originally posted by cparktd:
Can he only be charged at the location where he initiated the calls…
Or could he be charged by each jurisdiction where the actual swat was carried out?

Arrested at his house in California and extradited to Florida as a 17 year old. He's in a whole lot more trouble than he thought he could get into! He got a big dose of reality on Tuesday. I'm glad they are not treating him with kid gloves. The article lists 6 more states he made calls to.

Swatting FBI agents? Most of them probably should be. Points for a sense of humor. I wonder if he's the one who did Niki Haley?

Some more info on how they tracked him down here. I guess he thought he was smarter than everyone else: Wired article

A California teenager prosecutors say is responsible for hundreds of swatting attacks around the United States was exposed after law enforcement pieced together a digital trail left on some of the internet’s largest platforms, according to court records released this week.

Alan Winston Filion, a 17-year-old from Lancaster, California, faces four felony charges in Florida’s Seminole County related to swatting, or fake threats called into the police to provoke a forceful response, according to Florida state prosecutors. Police arrested Filion on January 18, and he was extradited to Seminole County this week.

Filion’s arrest, first reported by WIRED on January 26, marks the culmination of a multi-agency manhunt for the person police claim is responsible for swatting attacks on high schools, historically black colleges and universities, mosques, and federal agents, and for threats to bomb the Pentagon, members of the United States Senate, and the US Supreme Court. Ultimately, a YouTube channel, Discord chats, and usernames related to The Lord of the Rings helped lead authorities to Filion’s doorstep.

Florida prosecutors charged Filion with four felony counts, including three related to allegedly making false reports to law enforcement and one for unlawful use of a two-way radio for “facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism” that authorities say targeted people based on race, religion, or other protected classes. While prosecutors alleged that Filion “is responsible for hundreds of swatting and bomb threat incidents throughout the United States,” the charges Filion faces relate to a single May 12, 2023, swatting attack against the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida.

An attorney for Filion was not immediately available to respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

More than a year before the swatting attack on the Florida mosque, agents with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation interviewed Filion’s father, William, at his home in Lancaster, California, according to court documents made public on Wednesday. The interview took place on April 21, 2022, the same day the owner of a Telegram channel linked to swatting activity posted, “SOMEONE JUST REPORTED ME TO THE FBI… LOL!”

In October 2022, authorities investigating swatting incidents involving calls made to a school in Anacortes, Washington, came across a Telegram user associated with multiple swatting and doxing channels. The user, “Nazgul Swattings,” had claimed responsibility in one of these channels for the threats to the Washington schools, according to the same court documents.

Over the following months, court records say, the FBI monitored channels linked to this user. One of those, a channel called Torswats (formerly Nazgul Swats), had shared recordings of nearly 20 hoax calls threatening locations around the country, including schools in Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

As the FBI tracked Torswats’ public channels, Brad “Cafrozed” Dennis, a private investigator, was running his own parallel investigation on behalf of high-profile Twitch streamers who’d been swatted. In December, Dennis reached out to a user behind Torswats and asked to chat on a peer-to-peer chatting service called Tox under the guise of ordering a swat. According to records shared with WIRED, not mentioned in the arrest warrant, while interacting on Tox, Dennis used Wireshark to monitor his network traffic. In the process, he uncovered an IP address and the username “Paimon Arnum,” which was previously unknown to law enforcement.

A quick search on Google uncovered a YouTube account under that name that shared similarities with other Nazgul accounts. He sent this information to the FBI.

“Nazgul,” “Paimon Arnum,” and other usernames police claim are linked to online accounts Filion used are related to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. For example, the owner of the Torswats Telegram channel posted images of a Nazgul, which translates to “Ring Wraith” in Tolkien’s “black speech” language, according to court documents. Authorities say Filion used several usernames containing the phrase “Ring Wraith.” In emails between Dennis and the FBI, the private investigator also flagged a Discord account with the username “Dushatar,” which used a Nazgul as its profile image, court records say. The same Discord user previously used the handles “Paimon Arnum,” “Paimon Arnum Onkmokhob,” and “Paimon Arnum Angmarob,” according to court records, which investigators note are all “detailed, obscure ambiguations of words within Tolkien’s ‘black speech’ language.” Police say they also found Lord of the Rings-related words and online content linked to six Google accounts that they claim Filion used.

In April and May, the FBI sent subpoenas to Discord and Google requesting information about accounts linked to Dushatar on Discord and Paimon Arnum on YouTube. The records provided by the companies confirmed that a user had logged into both accounts using the same residential IP address in Lancaster California, court documents say.

In June, the FBI sent another subpoena to Google asking for information about five other accounts that shared cookies with the Gmail account tied to Painum Arnum. The arrest records say these accounts had watched YouTube videos about hoax shootings and bomb threats to schools around the US and had looked up things like “How many Jews are in the US,” “Criminal mastermind swatting,” ”Arm a pipe bomb,” and “Text to speech for phone call.”

On July 15, the FBI executed a search warrant on Filion’s Lancaster home and seized his phones and computers. This includes a Samsung device on which investigators say they observed Telegram activity related to earlier swatting attacks, images shared to the Torswats Telegram channel, email addresses connected to the Google accounts authorities claim Filion used, and other activity allegedly linked to the teenager, according to the arrest warrant. It’s unclear why the FBI waited until January to arrest Filion.

At 2 pm EST on Wednesday, Filion shuffled into a Seminole County courtroom and stood quietly as the judge read the charges against him. He is currently being held without bond.

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