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Police on Tuesday arrested a Twitter that is accused of impersonate relatives of former President Donald Trump.
Joshua Hall of Pennsylvania has been charged with fraud and identity theft, according to a Department of Justice (DoJ) press release.
The FBI claims Hall raised thousands of dollars for an organization posing as Trump’s relatives. The New York Times first reported in December that Hall had posed as Trump’s brother Robert Trump, his sister Elizabeth Trump Grau and his son Barron Trump.
In December 2020, the Times reported that Hall had raised $7,384 in a GoFundMe crusade filed on July 9, 2020 for a fake organization called “Gay Voices for Trump,” which Hall described on GoFundMe as “a popular coalition of LGBT Americans. . . “
The Justice Department provided the main points about this in the press release, but Hall spoke to the Times for its report.
GoFundMe kicked Hall off its site, Insider reported in December, and opened an investigation into the fundraising.
Investigators say Hall racked up more than 100,000 fans on social media and used the accounts to get media coverage, which “then exploded” tuesday’s complaint.
“Joshua Hall allegedly posed as a circle of family members of the then president of the United States on social media to fraudulently incite many patients to donate to a political organization that did not exist, and then pocketed the budget for his own use,” the Federal Prosecutor in Manhattan said Audrey Strauss in the Justice Department’s press release.
In total, the scheme designed and executed through Hall generated thousands of dollars for many patients located throughout the United States, who joined the Southern District of New York, according to the allegations contained in the complaint.
The impersonation of members of Trump’s family, adding Barron Trump, among others, to the center of the scheme, according to the complaint.
Trump fell in love with a fake Twitter profile of Elizabeth Trump when Hall tweeted that Elizabeth was seeking to cancel the election vote. “Thank you Elizabeth,” Trump posted on Twitter. LOVE!”
The tweet is now hidden because Trump’s account was “permanently suspended” after a violent siege of the U. S. Capitol in January. Twitter has also blocked each of the accounts of related members of Trump’s fake circle created through Hall.
The charges of wire fraud and identity theft carry a maximum penalty of 20 years and 2 years in prison, respectively.