Washington man convicted of 20 false threat ‘scam’ calls in US and Canada

TACOMA, Washington. A Washington state man who made 20 false reports of bombings and shootings across the U.S. and Canada, prompting real emergency responses, has been sentenced to three years in prison, U.S. authorities said.

Ashton Connor Garcia, 21, of Bremerton, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma on Tuesday, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Washington. Garcia pleaded guilty in January to two counts of extortion and two counts of explosives-related threats and fraud.

As part of his plea deal, Garcia admitted that he intended the calls to trigger the deployment of SWAT teams, bomb squads and other law enforcement agencies to the targeted locations.

Garcia used internet voice technology to hide his identity when he made the so-called scam calls between June 2022 and March 2023 and also broadcast them on a social media platform, according to federal prosecutors.

In two of the cases, he called false bomb alarms for the Fox News station in Cleveland and for a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles. In another case, he threatened to bomb an airport in Los Angeles unless he received $200,000 in Bitcoin, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said he collected personal information about several victims and threatened to send emergency responders to their homes unless they handed over money, credit card information or sexually explicit images.

Authorities entered some of the homes with guns drawn and detained people, officials said.

The plea agreement details 20 different false emergency reports targeting victims in California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington and Edmonton, Alberta, according to prosecutors.

Garcia’s arrest came amid a wave of threats and false reports of shooters in schools and colleges across the country. Other wave of false reporting callsmany of them targeting public officials, occurred early this year and late last year.

Some incidents of scams have led to police shooting peopleand officials also say they worry about resources being diverted from real emergencies.