A US citizen living in Miami who threatened to destroy his local Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office with either fire or a bomb faces criminal charges and could be given a prison sentence of up to ten years if found guilty
Morris Whitehead has been charged with wilfully making a threat through the use of a telephone concerning an attempt to be made to unlawfully damage or destroy a building by means of fire or an explosive.
According to prosecutors, Whitehead called the FBI’s Miami Field Office last week and indicated that the IRS building in Miami should be evacuated within two hours because it was going to go up in smoke.
Whitehead was arrested later that same day and allegedly admitted to law enforcement officers that he had placed the call.
According to local reports, Whitehead also told agents that he ‘had wanted to get arrested and go to jail’ and thought that making a threat against a federal government building would be the fastest way to achieve this.
He told agents that ‘his prayers had been answered when he saw the FBI agents arrive’.
Wifredo Ferrer, US attorney for the southern state of Florida, said: 'Threats to federal buildings are taken extremely seriously and we will continue to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law any attempts to disrupt the proper functioning of government and endanger the community.'
Whitehead is scheduled to be arraigned on 5 May 2015.
