United States District Judge Carlos E. Mendoza has sentenced Alan W. Filion (18, Lancaster, CA) to four years in federal prison for making interstate threats to injure the person of another.
According to the plea agreement, from approximately August 2022 to January 2024, Filion made over 375 swatting and threat calls, including calls in which he claimed to have planted bombs in the targeted locations or threatened to detonate bombs and/or conduct mass shootings at those locations.
Filion targeted religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government officials, and numerous individuals across the United States.
Filion intended his calls to cause large-scale deployment of police and emergency services units to the targeted locations.
During these calls, he provided information to law enforcement and emergency services agencies that he knew to be false, such as false names, false claims that he and others had placed explosives in particular locations, false claims that he and others possessed dangerous weapons, including firearms and explosives, and false claims that he and/or other individuals had committed, or intended to imminently commit violent crimes.
In some instances, armed law enforcement officers approached and entered a targeted residence with their weapons drawn and detained individuals who occupied the residence.
Filion claimed in a post on January 20, 2023, that when he swats someone he “usually get(s) the cops to drag the victim and their families out of the house cuff them and search the house for dead bodies.”
Additionally, Filion’s calls caused law enforcement officers and dispatchers to respond, and to be unavailable in response to other emergencies.
Filion became a serial swatter for both profit and recreation. He claimed in a January 19, 2023, online post that his “first” swatting was like “2 to 3 years ago” and that “6-9 months ago [he] decided to turn it into a business. . . .”
On several occasions, Filion placed posts on social media channels advertising his services and swatting-for-a-fee structure.
On January 18, 2024, Filion was arrested in California on Florida state charges arising from a May 2023 threat he made to a religious institution in Sanford, Florida. In that threat, he claimed to have an illegally modified AR-15, a Glock 17 pistol, pipe bombs, and Molotov cocktails.
He said that he was going to imminently “commit a mass shooting” and “kill everyone” he saw. He pleaded guilty in federal court to making that threat.
Filion also pleaded guilty to making three other threatening calls: an October 2022 call to a public high school in the Western District of Washington, in which he threatened to commit a mass shooting and claimed to have planted bombs throughout the school; a May 2023 call to a Historically Black College & University in the Northern District of Florida, in which he claimed to have placed bombs in the walls and ceilings of campus housing that would detonate in about an hour; and a July 2023 call to a local police department dispatch number in the Western District of Texas, in which he falsely identified himself as a senior federal law enforcement officer, provided the federal law-enforcement officer’s residential address to the dispatcher, claimed to have killed his (the federal officer’s) mother, and threatened to kill any responding police officers.
