It seems that people never learn. Commonplace is the death threat online (sadly), but one gamer who made such threats to Blizzard has found himself facing five years in prison for it.
Stephen Cebula, 28, was a player in the Silver bracket of Heroes of the Storm's ranked ladder system who unfortunately became known for his aggressive harassment of other players. Sending several message's worth of things such as racial epithets and threats to "bomb the new york twin towers". Not surprisingly he was reported to Blizz who quickly silenced Cebula to stop his hateful messaging habits. To say Cebula did not take this well would be an understatement.
Sending messages through Facebook, one such message from Cebula's Facebook threatened the company's California headquarters saying "You keep silencing me in Heroes of the Storm and I may or may not pay you a visit with an AK 47 amongst some other ‘fun’ tools."
The messages were reported to the feds and Cebula was arrested after the FBI found several other social media accounts in his control that concerned them, including one apparently named "tedbundyismygod1" - referring to one of America's most notorious serial killers.
According to court documents from the trial Cebula had admitted that he made the message with the intent to "scare those whom he had threatened". He is now being held without bail due to having been judged to have 'significant' mental issues by the state. Cebula had previously faced psychiatric evaluation before in March of last year when he confessed to Sacramento Sherriff's Department that had had intentions to kill someone at a local park.
His plea is expected to be entered on the 26th of the month, and right now he is facing a maximum of five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
Just a lesson for you. Death threats - they're not funny or cool. Don't make 'em.