$500 Twitter Offer Could Cost Man $250K

FYI, Twitter is not the place to seek out an assassin. Federal authorities say a tweet soliciting the murder of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents was flagged as a domestic terrorism threat days after it was posted July 2, leading to the Thursday arrest of a Massachusetts man in New York, reports BuzzFeed. "I am broke but I will scrounge and literally give $500 to anyone who kills an ice agent," 33-year-old Cambridge resident Brandon Ziobrowski allegedly wrote to his 448 Twitter followers before the tweet was removed and his account suspended. "Seriously who else can pledge get in on this let's make it work," Ziobrowski continued, according to an indictment.

The tweet was only the culmination of what authorities call "increasingly threatening and violent" messages by Ziobrowski. Charged with use of interstate and foreign commerce to transmit a threat to injure, he also allegedly threatened to kill Arizona Sen. John McCain and claimed "guns should only be legal for shooting the police." In another tweet to an official ICE account, he allegedly said, "Thank you ICE for putting your lives on the line and hopefully dying." "There's a difference between public debate and intentionally putting others in fear of their lives," US Attorney Andrew Lelling tells CNN. If convicted, Ziobrowski faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. (More threats stories.)