LA County teen and "serial swatter" gets prison time for calls with fake threats of bombs, shootings

A Los Angeles County teenager was sentenced to four years in prison Tuesday after admitting to making more than 375 "swatting calls" in which he made false reports of bomb and mass shooting threats at locations around the U.S.

Alan W. Filion, an 18-year-old Lancaster resident, admitted in a plea agreement to carrying out calls targeting places such as high schools, colleges and universities, religious institutions and people such as government officials, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Federal prosecutors said he intended for the calls to result in major emergency responses by law enforcement.

This led to some calls that left law enforcement officers unavailable to respond to real emergencies while they were busy responding to the fake threats being reported by Filion, according to prosecutors. Meanwhile, some calls resulted in officers arriving to a given location with their weapons drawn and detaining people, prosecutors said. 

In one social media post, made on Jan. 20, 2023, Filion claimed that he "usually get[s] the cops to drag the victim and their families out of the house cuff them and search the house for dead bodies," the Justice Department said in a statement.  

He admitted in the plea deal to making the calls between August 2022 and January 2024.

In November, he pleaded guilty to four counts of making interstate threats to injure the person of another. At the time, federal prosecutors said he could face up to five years in prison on each count — for a maximum possible sentence of 20 years. 

Filion ended up receiving 48 months in prison when he was sentenced Tuesday.

"Filion became a serial swatter for both profit and recreation," the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement, citing an online post in which he said he had decided to turn the calls "into a business" in January 2023. "On several occasions, Filion placed posts on social media channels advertising his services and swatting-for-a-fee structure."

The teenager was arrested in connection with Florida state charges on Jan. 18, 2024. In that case, he said he was going to "commit a mass shooting" and "kill everyone" he saw — making the threat against a religious institution in Sanford, Florida in May 2023, prosecutors said. He had claimed to have pipe bombs, an illegally modified AR-15, a Glock 17 pistol and Molotov cocktails.

He pleaded guilty to making that threat in federal court. 

In a statement, the Justice Department details three other swatting calls which Filion has pleaded guilty to. 

• October 2022: Filion called a public high school in Washington, threatening to commit a mass shooting there and claiming to have planted bombs around the campus.
• May 2023: He called a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in Florida, claiming he planted bombs in the walls and ceiling of campus housing at the school which he said would detonate in about an hour.
• July 2023: He made a call to a police department in Texas, falsely claiming to be a senior federal law enforcement officer and claiming to have killed the officer's mother while threatening to kill any police officers who respond. He had provided an actual federal law enforcement officer's home address to the dispatcher while making the false report.