Mississippi Man Sentenced for Communicating Death Threats Over Facebook Internet Website
| U.S. Attorney’s Office December 03, 2009 |
NEW ORLEANS, LA—DYRON L. HART, age 20, a resident of Poplarville, Mississippi, was sentenced yesterday in federal court by U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt to a term of three (3) years’ probation for communicating threats in interstate commerce, announced U.S. Attorney Jim Letten.
Additionally, Judge Engelhardt ordered that HART comply with special conditions which include completion of an orientation skills program, perform 150 hours of community service, obtain gainful employment and/or be enrolled in vocational or education training, complete a racial sensitivity course. Additionally, HART was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000.
According to court documents, on August 12, 2009, 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.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Marvin Opotowsky and Peter M. Thomson.