Texas man's lie about paying someone with Covid to lick groceries sends him to federal prison
This was not a joke and was not funny. This asshole will have fun in prison explaining why he is there
A Texas man who posted on Facebook that he paid someone sick with Covid-19 to intentionally spread the virus at San Antonio grocery stores by licking items was sentenced Monday to just over a year in prison.
Christopher Charles Perez, who also goes by the last name Robbins, was found guilty by a federal jury of two counts of making false hoaxes related to biological weapons, the Justice Department said in a statement.
According to court documents, Perez posted: "My homeboys cousin has covid19 and has licked every thing for past 2 days cause we paid him too [sic]. Big difference is we told him not to be these f------ idiots who record and post online. . .YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!"
A screenshot of the post was sent April 5, 2020, to the Southwest Texas Fusion Center, which then contacted the FBI bureau in San Antonio.
Perez, 40, told investigators that the post was a hoax. He said he wrote it because he thought too many people were still out grocery shopping and "was trying to scare people from the stores in order to stop them from spreading the virus to keep people safe," court documents state. He added that he did not know anyone who had the coronavirus, according to the documents.