A Miami man who posted death threats on X against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Department of State Special Envoy Kristi Noem has been sentenced to two years in federal prison. Jon Christopher Enriquez, 47, of Miami, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom after pleading guilty to three counts of transmitting threats through interstate communications, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida announced.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
The sentence closes a case that began with three public posts published on the social media platform X on May 27. According to court records cited by prosecutors, the posts threatened that both officials would be executed at specific times, and they were published in three separate posts over the course of a single afternoon.
What the posts said, according to court records
Prosecutors said Noem was, at the time of the posts, serving as Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a Department of State role, while Rubio was serving as Secretary of State. The Justice Department's announcement said the threats were made in three separate public posts, among them threats that both officials would be executed at specific times. The posts were public, not private messages, according to the court records described in the announcement.
Enriquez had earlier pleaded guilty to the three counts. At the time of that guilty plea, the Justice Department said he faced a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison on each count, and that a federal district court judge would determine the sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. Judge Bloom's sentence of 24 months was imposed at the sentencing hearing in the Southern District of Florida.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice (guilty plea release)
"Not harmless words": what the U.S. Attorney said
"Anyone who believes they can hide behind a keyboard while threatening to kill our nation's leaders should think again," said Acting U.S. Attorney Yara Lorenzo Klukas for the Southern District of Florida. "These are not harmless words. They are serious federal crimes with serious consequences. We will work relentlessly with our law enforcement partners to identify, prosecute, and bring to justice those who make such threats."
Transmitting threats through interstate communications is a federal crime in the United States. Enriquez pleaded guilty to three counts of it — one legal case built entirely out of three public social-media posts published on a single afternoon, May 27.
Five agencies worked the case
The case was investigated by the Diplomatic Security Service — the State Department's own security and law-enforcement arm — with assistance from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the City of Miami Police Department and the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office. The announcement was made by Acting U.S. Attorney Lorenzo Klukas together with Nicholas Collura, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director of the Diplomatic Security Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Y. Carré prosecuted the case.
Background: why a post can become a federal case
Threats aimed at senior U.S. officials are investigated federally because the officials they target run the departments that issue visas, run consulates and set foreign policy — Rubio leads the State Department, and Noem held a senior State Department envoy role when the posts were published. For immigrant communities, including South Florida's large diaspora population and Punjabi families across the United States who deal with those departments for visas and family cases, cases like this one are a reminder that online speech aimed at officials is tracked, investigated across several agencies and prosecuted in federal court, where a guilty plea can still mean years in prison.
What happens next
With sentencing complete, Enriquez will serve the 24-month federal prison term imposed by Judge Bloom. The Justice Department said related court documents and information can be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida and through PACER, the federal courts' public records system, under case number 26-cr-20239. The sentencing was also reported independently on November 13 by KELO/KRRO, which carried the same sentence, judge and case details.
Source: KRRO / KELO