Mississippi Man Pleads Guilty to Communicating Death Threats Over Facebook Internet Website
| U.S. Attorney’s Office August 12, 2009 |
NEW ORLEANS, LA—DYRON L. HART, 20, a resident of Poplarville, Mississippi, pled guilty in federal court today before U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt to a one count superseding bill of information charging the defendant with communicating threats in interstate commerce, announced U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.
According to court documents, HART, a former student at Nicholls State University, admitted that on November 5, 2008, admitted that he created a fictitious name and used the photograph of a white supremacist to communicated a threat. He then purported to be a person outraged by the election of President Barack Obama when he used a Facebook account on a computer in Poplarville, Mississippi to transmit a threat to an African-American student at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana indicating he wanted to kill African-American individuals because of the election of the President.
Upon sentencing, HART faces a maximum term of imprisonment of five (5) years, a fine of $250,0000, and three (3) years of supervised release following imprisonment. Sentencing has been scheduled for November 18, 2009.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Marvin Opotowsky and Peter M. Thomson.