Overview
- Thomasz Szabo was sentenced Wednesday to four years in federal prison in Washington, D.C., with three years of supervised release ordered by Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
- Prosecutors say he led a campaign of fake bomb threats and swatting calls that targeted members of Congress, cabinet officials, federal judges, law-enforcement chiefs, churches and journalists; swatting involves phony emergency reports that send armed police to a target’s home.
- Court records trace his role from Romanian chat servers he built in 2018 for trolling to an escalation by late 2020 that included a mass-shooting threat to New York synagogues and a January 2021 bomb threat at the U.S. Capitol against the then president-elect.
- U.S. authorities interviewed Szabo after a Romanian search on January 19, 2024, secured his extradition in November 2024 and obtained his June 2, 2025 guilty plea to conspiracy and threats involving explosives.
- Prosecutors say the hoaxes drained first responders and put people at risk, and related prosecutions continue, with co-defendant Nemanja Radovanovic’s case pending and associate Alan Filion already serving four years for about 375 swatting calls.