Spurned Georgia man gets 3.5 years for Florida bomb threats

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Georgia man spurned by a co-worker has been sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison for making hoax bomb threats against an airport and schools in Florida while using the name of the co-worker’s boyfriend.

A U.S. Attorney’s Office news release says 26-year-old Preston McWaters of Athens, Georgia, was sentenced Tuesday. He pleaded guilty in July to four bomb threat counts. Nine other charges were dropped.

Court documents show that McWaters created false email and social media accounts in the name of a Jupiter man in a relationship with the woman who had rejected McWaters’ romantic advances. Prosecutors say McWaters used the accounts over several months in late 2015 and early 2016 to send false bomb threats to Palm Beach County schools, Palm Beach International Airport and private businesses.

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