A Mesa man was arrested after sending a threatening text to a family member, which the suspect says was a joke, but the victim is not laughing.
Court records report that a late April fool's day joke is landing one man in hot water, as he threatened his uncle's family with a bomb.
On April 5, Mesa police were contacted by a man saying he received text messages threatening his family.
The text message stated, "I've carefully placed with perfect placement a land mine with a 185 degree kill radius...you better watch the kids (bomb emoji.)"
The victim said other text messages instructed him not to call police and demanded money. "I want 500 bones in my account by 11pm."
The victim told police that his nephew, 27-year-old Leon Brown, was known to send unusual text messages but nothing like this.
The victim also told police that he didn't recognize the phone number the texts were sent from.
Brown was contacted by police and told them it was a joke, and that his uncle should have known it was him.
The victim was not amused and neither was the Maricopa County Attorney's Office as they have charged Brown on charges of hoax, threatening and intimidating and harassment.
