Federal prosecutors on Tuesday
announced that they were dropping a criminal case against a Florida
man accused of threatening to kill gay men and lesbians.
A previously released criminal
complaint accused Craig Allen Jungwirth of threatening to kill gays
in several Facebook posts. A grand jury in September charged him
with transmission of a threatening communication, which carries a
maximum five-year prison sentence and up to a $25,000 fine if
convicted of the crime.
According to the Fort
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the move to drop the case comes
roughly six weeks after prosecutors acknowledged in court that the
evidence against Jungwirth is “weak” and circumstantial.
Prosecutors claimed Jungwirth was the
author of a Facebook post that read in part: “None of you deserve
to live. If you losers thought the Pulse nightclub shooting was bad,
wait till you see what I'm planning for Labor Day.”
The Pulse is the Orlando gay nightclub
where 49 people died and dozens were injured in a mass shooting in
June.
In a separate post, the author added
that there was a better “solution to exterminate you losers” than
AIDS.
Prosecutors believe Jungwirth has as
many as 59 Facebook profiles, but were unable to link the threat to
him.