(CN) - A Tampa, Florida, woman has been charged with making death threats against the parent of a child who died in the Sandy Hook school massacre because she thought the mass shooting was a hoax.
Lucy Richards, 57, was arrested Monday after a grand jury indictment on four felony counts of transmitting threats, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.
According to federal prosecutors, Richards made the threats in a series of messages sent to the unidentified parent on a single day in January. These messages said things like "Look behind you it is death" and "you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon."
The target of the messages now lives in South Florida and the threats were made in Palm Beach County, the indictment says.
Next Wednesday is the four anniversary of the Dec. 14, 2012 shootings in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza with a rifle killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Prior to the school shooting, Lanza killed his mother in their Newtown home. He later committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Richards is scheduled to make her initial court appearance in Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 19.
If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison for each charge.
Read the Top 8
Sign up for the Top 8, a roundup of the day's top stories delivered directly to your inbox Monday through Friday.
