Robinson De La Cruz Hilario, a Puerto Rico man charged with making online threats of mass violence and receiving child sexual abuse material, admitted to federal investigators that he made threatening social media posts targeting both the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court.
The FBI announced on Friday that De La Cruz was arrested following an investigation that allegedly uncovered “repeated online threats of mass violence targeting the LGBTQ community, as well as the receipt and possession of illegal child exploitation material.”
According to the affidavit, the FBI’s San Juan Field Office received a tip in February that De La Cruz was planning a “mass shooting event” and had shared a “tactical” map of a gay-friendly bar in the San Juan metropolitan area. Investigators also identified numerous public social media posts praising Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., before being killed by police. During the attack, Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The complaint also alleges that on June 8, De La Cruz posted images of patches, some associated with neo-Nazi groups, alongside messages including, “Let’s burn the LGBTQ community to the ground hunting season is on” and “Let’s kill every single person in the LGBTQ community in Puerto Rico.”
Federal authorities said De La Cruz posted a selfie holding “a Glock handgun.” During an interview, he admitted to operating the social media accounts and making “posts that were targeted towards the LGBTQ community and the Jewish community.” He acknowledged that some of his posts constituted threats, stating that “he had no intention of carrying it out” and that he wanted his social media posts to instill fear.
