A Texas man has been jailed for a COVID-19 “prank” he posted on social media. Christopher Charles Perez, also known as Christopher Robbins, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for some posts he posted on Facebook. In these posts, he claimed that he paid someone infected with COVID-19 to lick produce from grocery stores in the San Antonio area, in an effort to stop people from visiting certain stores.
After investigating the incident, the Federal Bureau of Investigation determined that the threat was unconvincing. Perez hadn’t paid anyone to lick grocery items. But by claiming to have done so, he broke the law against the spread of misinformation and deception about biological weapons.
“Those who threaten to use COVID-19 as a weapon against others should be held accountable for their actions, even if the threat is a hoax,” said Christopher Combs, FBI Special Representative for the San Antonio Area. “Perez’s actions knowingly spread fear and panic.” It was designed for crime, and the sentence given today shows the seriousness of this crime.”
In addition to his prison sentence, Perez was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 for the deception.
US Attorney Ashley C. Hoff said in a statement: “Trying to scare people with the threat of spreading dangerous diseases is no joke. We take threats to harm the community seriously, and full-blown response will be held accountable under the law.”
Oddly enough, Perez isn’t the first to break the “no licking or threatening to lick products at the grocery store” laws. There were instances of such incidents even before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the early stages of the outbreak, a man in Missouri filmed himself licking a number of items at a Walmart and made the video publicly available. He is also on trial with the charge of “second-degree terrorist threat”.
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