TAMPA, Fla. – A 24-year-old California man has pleaded guilty to threatening several Tampa Bay Rays baseball players.
Benjamin Tucker Patz, known as Parlay Patz, said he’s guilty of the charge of transmitting threats in interstate or foreign commerce, court records show.
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The FBI has been investigating Patz since 2019.
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According to the plea agreement, the Tampa Bay Rays lost a home game to the Chicago White Sox on July 19, 2019. On that day, four players, and a White Sox player, received threatening direct messages on the social media platform Instagram.
In messages to the Tampa Bay Ray players, Patz said he would violently kill them and their families. Some of the messages included statements such as “I will cut up your family,” “I will enter your home while you sleep and sever your neck open,” among other gruesome statements, court records show.
Investigators said Patz sent the messages knowing the players and their families would see them and took it as a true threat to injure multiple individuals.
Patz could face five years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not been set.