State drops charges against Miami-area med student who threatened McConnell on Twitter
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State prosecutors dropped charges against a 31-year-old medical student who expressed his anger at U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell on social media in late October, after determining the threats were “exaggerated” and appeared to be “hyperbole.”
A close-out memo issued Friday by Assistant Miami-Dade State Attorney Stewart Hedrick said a search of Steven DiLauro’s Pinecrest home didn’t turn up any weapons and that he “lacked the ability to carry out the described acts.”
“The defendant was physically located in Miami,” Hedrick wrote. “The only named target resides in Kentucky and Washington D.C., and there is no evidence of his intention to be anywhere near Miami.”
In early November, DiLauro, 31, was charged by the state with issuing a written threat to kill or do bodily harm, a felony. On Nov. 5, Capitol police notified Miami-Dade police, who went to the medical student’s home and took him into custody. Police said DiLauro admitted to making the threats, but said he had no intention of harming the senator.
In a tweet, DiLauro said if he’s not killed first, he would bounce McConnell’s “skull on the sidewalk like a f...... sea otter and tear his skin off...” He went on to say that “Every member of the GOP should be lined up in front of a wall...”
In the end, prosecutors decided that DiLauro’s prose didn’t seem much different from the cesspool of political speech that has seeped into the Twitter world. Even President Donald Trump has been criticized for tweets and Twitter often warns readers of the inaccuracy of some of the president’s comments or re-tweets.
Trump once tweeted that “when the looting starts the shooting starts” about civil unrest following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.
Legal experts say the First Amendment protects rhetorical hyperbole — or colorful commentary that no one would reasonably believe to be real.
In the end, state prosecutors said they didn’t believe they could secure a conviction against DiLauro.
“Senator McConnell’s representatives indicated that he understood the decision and did not wish to object to it,” Hedrick wrote.
