The White House (C-SPAN/YouTube)
A 46-year-old Arizona man is accused of threatening to bomb the White House and other areas in the nation’s capital, warning a news station that the attacks would commence within 12 hours.
Federal authorities arrested Jacob Aaron Hicks on Wednesday and charged him with one count of making an interstate threat to injure someone.
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According to the criminal complaint, at 9:03 p.m. on Sept. 23, Hicks sent the alleged threat from a Gmail account to an ABC-affiliated news station in Tucson, warning that the White House and other Washington, D.C., locations were targets.
“Be advised. In 12 hours, there’ll be a strike against the White House. There’s bombs all around Washington, D.C. This is not a joke. Be advised. You Americans will pay. Allah, to Allah,” the email to KGUN allegedly stated.
The station notified law enforcement, prompting an investigation by the FBI, with assistance from the U.S. Secret Service.
Investigators found additional threatening language in unsent email drafts saved to the same account, federal authorities said. One draft, addressed to NBC’s station in Washington, D.C., warned, “In 15 minutes, there will be an attack on the White House, coming from all sides.”
Another, addressed to the Fox affiliate in Washington, D.C., allegedly said: “There will be an attack on the White House, and surrounding bombs had been in very important buildings in Washington DC.”
Investigators linked the account to a Mint Mobile phone number registered to Hicks, and Google records indicated that the account was used by him.
During an interview with FBI agents at his Tucson residence on Sept. 24, Hicks reportedly acknowledged that the phone number associated with the account belonged to him but denied sending the threatening email. He eventually claimed that he “loaned his phone to a homeless person to use during the time period the email was sent,” the complaint says.
Hicks consented to a search of his devices, which showed that a user had accessed the White House contact website at about 7:39 and 7:40 p.m. on Sept. 23, and KGUN’s website at about 9:01 and 9:03 p.m., around the time the threat was sent.
Investigators also observed a text message sent on Sept. 2 from a contact identified as Hicks to a Tucson-area phone number. The message stated, “Anthrax is going to be delivered to destroy Tucson I have C4 for federal building and bombing on 9-11-2026 05:00 am.”
The complaint also describes a May 2016 incident in New York. A Wayne County Sheriff’s Office report cited by investigators states that on May 24, 2016, authorities responded to the Wayne County Department of Social Services after Hicks allegedly contacted the Monroe County Department of Social Services and threatened to blow up the Wayne County building and “kill everyone in the building.”
Investigators went to Hicks’ address and warned him that further contact or statements could result in charges, and that the threats could be considered terroristic in nature, according to the report described in the complaint.
“We must take threats of violence like this one seriously,” U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine said in a statement. “I am grateful to our local news station for referring this threat to law enforcement, and to the FBI for addressing the situation quickly, professionally, and with the level of commitment it required.”
The post ‘This is not a joke’: Man busted for threatening to blow up White House ‘in 12 hours,’ claiming he placed ‘bombs all around’ DC, feds say first appeared on Law & Crime.
