Lancaster teen gets 4 years for serial swatting

A Lancaster teenager was sentenced to four years in prison for making threats against and swatting hundreds of victims across the United States.

Alan W. Filion, 18, made the threats between August 2022 and January 2024, a period in which he “made over 375 swatting and threat calls, including calls in which he claimed to have planted bombs in the targeted locations or threatened to detonate bombs and/or conduct mass shootings at those locations,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.

Targets included “religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government officials, and numerous individuals across the United States,” the DOJ added.

As a result of the false claims, large numbers of police and other first responders were sent to targeted locations, sometimes entering residences with their weapons drawn and detaining those inside at gunpoint.

“Filion claimed in a post on Jan. 20, 2023, that when he swats someone, 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 release said. “Additionally, Filion’s calls caused law enforcement officers and dispatchers to respond, and to be unavailable in response to other emergencies.”

As for his motivation, Filion turned what had been a recreational activity into a moneymaker, prosecutors said, posting “on social media channels advertising his services and swatting-for-a-fee structure.”

Filion did not appear in a search of federal inmate records.