A pro-trump arrested for causing an epileptic fit via a tweet

The US authorities have just made the first arrest of a suspect accused of cyber-harassment. He had sent a tweet to a journalist in order to provoke a crisis of epilepsy in him.

With our correspondent in Washington, Jean-Louis Pourtet

On December 15, in the evening, Kurt Eichenwald, a former New York Times reporter withdrew in Dallas, followed by 318,000 Internet users on Twitter, receives a tweet. When he opens it, he reads: "You deserve a crisis for your messages," against a background of strobe light. This is known to trigger epileptic seizures.

Punishment

Eichenwald, who had mentioned his illness in an article, had a crisis which he took time to recover: left hand handicapped, difficulty speaking. The author of the tweet wanted to punish the reporter for his criticisms against Trump. The police were able to find him and while searching his computer discovered messages referring to the tweet as well as research on epilepsy.

Forty messages

John Rivello, 29, who identified himself as Jew Goldstein, the "Jew Goldstein," resides in Maryland and is expected to be transferred to Texas for questioning. He faces up to ten years in prison. Eichenwald thanked the police for his arrest but reported that since the incident he had received forty other messages with a strobe light.