{"id":302902,"date":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=302902"},"modified":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T06:39:16","slug":"us-man-held-for-sending-flashing-tweet-to-epileptic-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/03\/us-man-held-for-sending-flashing-tweet-to-epileptic-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"US man held for sending flashing tweet to epileptic writer"},"content":{"rendered":"
A man accused of sending a flashing image to a writer in order to trigger an epileptic seizure has been arrested, the US justice department says.<\/p>\n
John Rayne Rivello, 29, of Maryland, sent Kurt Eichenwald an animated image with a flashing light on Twitter in December, causing the seizure.<\/p>\n
He has been charged with criminal cyber stalking and could face a 10-year sentence, the New York Times reports.<\/p>\n
“You deserve a seizure for your post,” he is alleged to have written.<\/p>\n
Mr Eichenwald is known to have epilepsy. He is a senior writer at Newsweek magazine, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a best-selling author of books including The Informant.<\/p>\n
‘Let’s see if he dies’<\/p>\n
Investigators found that Mr Rivello had sent messages to other Twitter users about Mr Eichenwald and a plan to attack him virtually, including one that read: “I hope this sends him into a seizure”.<\/p>\n
“Spammed this at [victim] let’s see if he dies,” another message read, according to the justice department.<\/p>\n
Investigators found a screenshot on his iCloud account of an altered Wikipedia page for Mr Eichenwald, falsely listing his date of death as 16 December, a day after the image was sent.<\/p>\n
He had also researched epilepsy seizure triggers on the epilepsy.com website.<\/p>\n
The Twitter message was no different from “a bomb sent in the mail or anthrax sent in an envelope,” Steven Lieberman, a lawyer for Mr Eichenwald, told the New York Times. “It triggers a physical effect.”<\/p>\n