US School Shooting Hoax Results in Jail for 2 Teenagers - Justice Department

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Two men in the US state of Kentucky have been sentenced to prison terms of 27 months and 21 months for creating a Snapchat post in which a third person, who had no knowledge of the hoax, threatened a mass shooting at a local school, the Department of Justice said in a press release.

"United States District Judge Danny C. Reeves sentenced 18-year-old Tristan H. Kelly to 21 months in federal prison and 19-year-old Cody T. Ritchey to 27 months in federal prison," the release said on Friday.

Kelly and Ritchey both admitted that they had worked together to create a Snapchat profile, using the name and picture of a third person who did not know about their actions, the release explained.

Kelly and Ritchey then used the profile to publish a series of posts suggesting that this third individual would use firearms to attack a Jessamine County public school in Kentucky in February 2018, the release noted.

Among other posts, Kelly and Ritchey made references to the shooting that had occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, only days earlier.

On February 14, 2018, a gunman killed 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the state of Florida, one of the worst in a spate of school shootings in the United States.