Lorraine Maradiaga, an 18-year-old from Texas, has been arrested. She recently took to several media outlets where she claimed that she was infected with the coronavirus and had plans to make as many people sick as possible.
Authorities in Carrollton were actively searching for the teen whose actions are deemed as terrorist threats, according to a message that was posted on Twitter.
Maradiaga became a trending topic after she appeared in several Snapchat videos under the name Lorraine Boutit.
She uploaded multiple videos that were later reposted on other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
In one video, the young woman is seen going to a drive-through testing site for the COVID-19. After getting tested by a nurse; Maradiaga is told that she must go home and wait for the results.
Instead of following the instructions given by the nurse, Maradiaga starts coughing in her car and goes shopping at Walmart, where she turned to the camera and made numerous threats.
The teen made this chilling confession while at the store: “I’m here at Walmart about to infest every (expletive) because if I’m going down, all you (expletive) are going down. If you want to get, the coronavirus and (expletive) die, call me. I’ll meet you up and cough, cough, and I will shorten your life.”
Maradiaga also said she did not care about making others sick or about making people angry by her dangerous actions.
The Carrollton Police Department issued a statement on the matter that read: “We have identified the woman seen on social media claiming to be COVID-19 positive and willfully spreading it as 18-year-old Lorraine Maradiaga of Carrollton. We are charging her with Terroristic Threat, Texas Penal Code 22.07 … We have no confirmation Maradiaga is actually a threat to public health. We are, however, taking her social media actions very seriously.”
A spokesperson for the Carrollton Police Department also revealed that they had visited Maradiaga’s home on Sunday, but she was not present, and at the time, they had not been able to locate her.
Police officers said that her family cooperated with them, and they wanted her to surrender. It is still not clear if Maradiaga is infected by the deadly disease or she was pulling a prank to get famous on social media.
The young woman was transferred to Denton County Jail and her bond was set at $20,000. Although she told authorities that she does not have COVID-19, she is expected to go on a 21-day quarantine after her release.
Authorities do not have proof that she ever tested positive. She will be charged with making a terroristic threat
