A 23-year-old Florida International University student, Gabriela Saldana, has been arrested and charged with a second-degree felony after sending two messages in a 215-person student WhatsApp group chat.
In the first message, she wrote: “Netanyahu, if you can hear me, drop some bonbons for us Capstone students in the Ocean Bank Convocation Center.” In the second, she wrote: “There is going to be a bomb in the Ocean Bank Convocation Center and it was going to be Jonathan’s fault,” naming a fellow student.
She later called them a “dumb joke,” but the judge ruled that to an objective person, the messages would not read as jokes, and found probable cause for arrest.
She faces a charge of making written threats to kill or do bodily harm, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years under Florida law. Her bond was set at $5,000. She has not been convicted or sentenced.