In U.S. v. Alexander, decided yesterday by Judge Paul Engelmayer (S.D.N.Y.), the criminal complaint (which yielded an indictment) alleges:
[O]n or about August 20, 2025, [Alexander] sent threatening electronic messages via a social media application … to the spouse ("Victim-1") of a U.S. Immigrations [sic] and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") deportation officer ("Officer-1").
asserted
Alexander → decide → ]
The first message stated, "Are these your kids you had with your Nazi murder rapist husband.
asserted
you → state → husband
They will get it too.
asserted
They → get → it
Never think that his whiteness will protect them."
asserted
whiteness → think → them
The second message consisted of a photograph of Victim-1's and Officer-1's children….
asserted
message → consist → children
Defendant argued her speech was protected the First Amendment, but the court declined to dismiss the indictment:
Section 875(c) makes it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce "any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another." …
asserted
it → argue → another
The Supreme Court has described "true threats" of violence unprotected by the First Amendment as "'serious expression[s]' conveying that a speaker means to 'commit an act of unlawful violence.'"
asserted
speaker → describe → violence
"True threats" are distinguished from "jests, 'hyperbole,' or other statements that when taken in context do not convey a real possibility that violence will follow."
asserted
violence → distinguish → possibility
Whether Alexander's alleged message to the victim contains a "true threat" to injure is a question for the jury.
asserted
contains → allege → jury
There is no basis for the Court to determine that the conduct, necessarily, cannot so qualify, and to dismiss the Indictment on that ground….
asserted
conduct → be → ground
The court acknowledged that, "[i]n a rare case, a court may conclude 'as a matter of law' that 'no reasonable jury could find that the alleged communication constitutes a threat or a true threat,'" but concluded that this wasn't such a case:
…
uncertain
this → acknowledge → threat
Alexander posits a non-threatening construction.
asserted
Alexander → posit → construction
She urges that the key phrase ("[t]hey will get it too"), read in light of the next sentence ("[n]ever think that his whiteness will protect them"), is not a threat to injure the children.
asserted
whiteness → urge → children
Rather, she argues, the message conveys that the "children will not be insulated from the harsh governmental policies associated with their father's work."
asserted
children → argue → work
Alexander argues that the message "contained no threat," in that it was "so clearly non-threatening that no reasonable jury could find otherwise."
uncertain
jury → argue → threat
U.S. v. Joudeh (M.D. Fla. 2026) (citation omitted).
asserted
citation → omit → Joudeh
She likens her case to Joudeh, supra, in which an online communication was held, on a motion to dismiss, necessarily to fall short of a true threat.
asserted
communication → liken → threat
Joudeh is readily distinguished.
asserted
Joudeh → distinguish → ?
There, the defendant was charged with violating § 875(c) for transmitting an "online comment" that read, "I wish someone would in alive him."
asserted
someone → charge → him
On the motion to dismiss, the district court credited (as the Government argued) that "in alive" was a mistype of "unalive," a euphemism for "kill."
asserted
Government → dismiss → kill
The court nonetheless found that "no reasonable jury could consider this broad, non-detailed wish to be a threat."
uncertain
wish → find → ?
Instead, it held, the communication reflected "a vague desire that someone was no longer alive."
asserted
someone → hold → desire
The court therefore dismissed the indictment on the ground that the statement did "not express an intent to commit harm in the past, present, or future, and there [was] no other context to explain how this statement could possibly be threatening"—it was "simply not a threat."
uncertain
statement → dismiss → past
In recognizing that a message conveying merely "a vague desire" that harm would befall someone was not a true threat, the court tracked the Second Circuit's case law in this area, which likewise distinguishes expressions of "abstract desire" from "true threats."
asserted
which → recognize → threats
U.S. v. Turner (2d Cir. 2013) ("Turner did not merely advocate law violation or express an abstract desire for the deaths of Judges Easterbrook, Bauer, and Posner.").
asserted
Turner → advocate → Easterbrook
That principle, however, does not avail Alexander.
asserted
principle → avail → Alexander
The message she sent the victim—that "[t]hey will get it too"—is instead like the statements held in Turner
asserted
t]hey → send → Turner
to qualify as "true threats" because they expressed an intent to commit harm
asserted
they → qualify → harm
These were that certain federal judges "deserve to be killed"; that "[i]f they are allowed to get away with this by surviving, other Judges will act the same way"; and that "[t]hese Judges deserve to be made such an example of as to send a message to the entire judiciary: Obey the Constitution or die."
asserted
Judges → deserve → Constitution
Significant, too, Alexander attached a photograph of the victim's minor children, establishing her knowledge of their identity, and she sent the message directly to the victim, rather than posting it in a forum where the victim might not alert to it.
uncertain
victim → attach → it
On the basis of limited materials at hand—the message and attachment—a reasonable jury could find Alexander's statement to the victim that her children "will get it" to express an intent to do physical harm to them, not a mere "vague" desire that the children be injured, and thus to "constitute[ ] a threat or a true threat."
uncertain
children → find → threat
Moreover, contrary to Alexander's premise, § 875(c) does not require that the defendant "specifically intend to carry out the threat."
asserted
defendant → require → threat
And to the extent that Alexander defends that the statement was too euphemistic and/or insufficiently specific to support a conviction, the case law is against her….
asserted
law → defend → her
[W]ithout an evidentiary record, it is premature for the Court to assess whether, as Alexander argues, her message could only be understood as non-threatening commentary protected by the First Amendment….
uncertain
message → assess → Amendment
[T]hat argument "reduces to a question of evidentiary sufficiency, i.e., was the evidence sufficient to prove 'true threats' falling outside First Amendment protection?"
asserted
evidence → reduce → protection
Conceivably, the trial evidence may support that Alexander "engaged solely in protected speech … [b]ut this is a matter of proof that cannot be resolved at this stage of the proceedings."
uncertain
that → support → proceedings
{At trial, the parties will be at liberty to offer additional admissible evidence as to the context of this message, which may inform a jury's assessment of whether it was a true threat.
uncertain
it → offer → assessment
In this case, the Government proffered at a pretrial conference and in briefing that the ICE official to whom the victim is married was doxxed—i.e., his personal information was publicly shared—roughly contemporaneously with the charged communication.
asserted
information → proffer → communication
The defense, meanwhile, notes that the communication occurred on the same day that the New York Times published an article documenting the separation of immigrant families, and in particular ICE's deportation of a six-year-old girl and her mother.
asserted
Times → note → girl
For purposes of this decision, the Court does not consider these proffers, but is mindful that evidence speaking to Alexander's motivations could be received and could bear on the "true threat" inquiry.
uncertain
evidence → consider → inquiry
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
