Federal authorities charged an Iowa man on Tuesday with making threats over the Internet, after he allegedly threatened to shoot and kill Muslims in comments he posted on the Facebook page of Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center.
Gerald Wayne Ledford was arrested in Clinton, Iowa, on Tuesday and is to appear in a courthouse there, then appear in US District Court in Boston on June 25, according to US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s office.
The charge against Ledford is based on two postings he made to the Center’s Facebook account in October 2014 that were noticed by a staffer who took a screenshot of them before deleting them from the system, according to the federal complaint.
In a statement, federal authorities alleged that Ledford posted a photograph of a man with a long gun on the ISBCC’s Facebook page, with the caption, saying, “This is for you. followers of [...] Mohamed.” The posting included an expletive to describe the founder of the Islamic faith.
In a second posting, federal authorities alleged, Ledford wrote in sentences riddled with misspellings and expletives that “you all will go to hell” and promised “we will destroy you.”
Ledford had previously expressed violent anti-Muslim views on social media, including this year when three Muslims were murdered in North Carolina in what authorities have said may have been a hate crime committed by a white man, federal officials said.
In court papers, FBI Special Agent Trinity D. Schroeter wrote that Ledford has been prosecuted in Iowa in the past and has posted threats to unnamed individuals on other social media.
“Although at this time investigators have no evidence that Ledford intended to actually shoot anyone at the ISBCC, there is probable cause to believe that Ledford intended the posts to be perceived as threats,’’ Schroeter wrote.