Michigan Man Gets Probation For Threatening To Kill Children — And Jews
(JTA) — A Michigan man who used Twitter to threaten to kill children and Jews in mass shooting attacks was sentenced to two years of probation.
A judge in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Thursday gave David Lenio, 29, the probation sentence after giving him credit for the four months he served in jail after his February arrest, which ended after his trial in June.
A jury in June acquitted Lenio of two felonies, and convicted him of the lesser charge of malicious use of telecommunications. He was released from prison on his own recognizance following the June trial.
In addition to probation, Lenio was ordered to stay away from synagogues and schools and to not use computers, Fox17 in West Michigan reported.
The threats made on Twitter when he was in Montana included a tweet saying he wanted to execute 30 or more grade school children — to exceed the number killed at Sandy Hook in December 2012.
He also posted tweets about shooting up a synagogue, and that he wanted to put two bullets “in the head” of a rabbi or Jewish leader, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
