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posted by martyb on Thursday March 23 2017, @11:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the worse-than-HACF dept.

Previously: Alleged Epilepsy-Triggering Troll Arrested by the FBI.

The man accused of triggering an epileptic seizure by tweeting was caught when authorities obtained phone records and access to an iCloud account:

Court documents show that a search warrant to Twitter concerning the @jew_goldstein handle provided the authorities with information that the account was created on December 11 with a "PhoneDevice." Twitter also divulged the device's phone number and said that the carrier was AT&T. Some of the direct messages to other Twitter users on the account, according to the documents, said, "I know he has epilepsy," "I hope this sends him into a seizure," and "...let's see if he dies." The Dallas authorities next obtained information from AT&T that the telephone number used to start the Twitter account was a burner SIM card with a Tracfone prepaid account "with no subscriber information." "However, a review of the AT&T toll records showed an associated Apple iPhone 6A Model 1586 (Apple iPhone)," Nathan Hopp, an FBI agent in Dallas, wrote in the criminal complaint (PDF).

The police then sent a search warrant to Apple "for the iCloud account associated to the telephone number" used to open the Twitter account. Apple provided a wealth of information that ultimately doomed Rivello. Cupertino gave the Dallas Police Department his Apple ID e-mail address, his name, home address, and registration IP address when the account was created in 2012.

John Rayne Rivello has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon "enhanced as a hate crime". One of the images obtained from the iCloud account included an image of Rivello posing with his driver's license. The animated GIF that Rivello allegedly tweeted was a generic one that had already been posted on places such as 4chan for years.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Friday March 24 2017, @01:01PM

    by sjames (2882) on Friday March 24 2017, @01:01PM (#483614) Journal

    Since the sender clearly considered it a form of assault (based on his comments surrounding his action) and we know it had the potential to act as one in this case, I see no reason why we shouldn't treat it as one. Also based on surrounding comments, we know there was malice.

    Had any of those elements been missing an assault charge might have been too much but in this case I think it's entirely appropriate.

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