A Harlingen man was sentenced to eight years in state prison for possessing chemicals to make a bomb.
Joel Haden Schrimsher, 19, was arrested in June 2019 after making an online threat to blow up a Federal Reserve building.
When Harlingen police and the FBI searched Schrimsher’s family home they found he had bomb making materials and the recipes to make them.
In late November, Schrimsher was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release for threatening to blow up a federal building.
The U.S. Attorneys Office of the Southern District of Texas said in a previous news release, that on June 6, 2019, authorities learned of an online threat made via Twitter from the username @HaydenJool displayed as @Hayden Ter(rawr)ist.
The investigation also revealed a post on his account relaying a family conversation which ended with “Me: I’m gonna mail a bomb to the Federal Reserve.”
Schrimsher pleaded guilty Aug. 24, 2020, to conveying false or misleading information through the internet concerning the potential destruction of a federal building.
“We all know to well the effects of radicalization. Schrimsher became radicalized and sought to terrorize our community,” said Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz. “Regardless of the basis for a person’s hate, terrorism is wrong.”
The DA’s office said a review of Schrimsher’s phone found a large cache of images of Nazi propaganda and hate directed toward Jews, Muslims and African Americans.
