Florida man gets year in prison for mosque threat

MIAMI – A Florida man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for leaving a voicemail threatening to shoot people at a mosque.

The Miami U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release that 35-year-old Gerald Sloane Wallace was sentenced Wednesday. He pleaded guilty in October to a federal hate crime, admitting that he phoned the Islamic Center of Greater Miami in February 2017 and left the threatening voicemail.

Court documents say the message used profanity against Islam, the prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an and threatened to “go down to your centre” and shoot people.

Wallace pleaded guilty to one count of obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs. He had faced up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors previously said Wallace admitted leaving similar threatening messages at other mosques.