Twin brothers from Atlantic County recently charged with making social media posts that advocated shooting ICE agents “on sight” did so via an X account on which they also made several hateful comments about Jews, court documents show.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the arrests and charging of Emilio A. Ramon-Flores and Ricardo A. Roman-Flores in a Dec. 9 statement in which authorities say they also called for the hanging of Tricia McLauglin, the agency’s assistant secretary for public affairs.
The statement had few details and did not say which agency charged the identical twins, who are 26 and live in Absecon. They are U.S. citizens.
The Absecon Police Department charged the brothers, New Jersey court documents show. Emilio faces 11 crimes, including bias/intimidation terroristic threats, criminal coercion, cyber harassment and firearm charges for an assault-style weapon found during a search of their home. Ricardo faces three charges, two for bias intimidation threats and possessing the rifle.
It’s unclear why federal authorities did not bring the charges, although such a case could still be handled by federal prosecutors. Absecon police and federal authorities did not immediately respond to messages about the prosecution.
Absecon police charged the brothers based on information from a Department of Homeland Security special agent, who reported to the local department the apparent threats made on X, formerly Twitter, according to the documents.
The X account connected to the brothers made 16 specific threats to law enforcement, federal officials and Jewish people, affidavits supporting the charges against both men say.
One post said, “Anything a Jew states is a lie, burn them all.”
In the affidavits, detectives wrote that the Homeland Security special agent reported the X social media account to police on Dec. 5 along with other information from a federal investigation, which traced the email that registered the account.
Someone accessed the account on Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 from two internet addresses, one at Siegfried USA’s Pennsville Township plant, and one from the brothers’ home on Spruce Street in Absecon. The brothers both work at Siegfried, a pharmaceutical company based in Switzerland, the affidavits say.
Detectives suspected Ricardo created the account, the affidavits say, but Ricardo’s phone was in Roanoke, Virginia when the Dec. 5 threats were made against McLaughlin and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Emilio admitted to police following a court-authorized search of their home last week that he made all the comments on the X account but used his brother’s email. Emilio said his brother knew that and about the content of what he was posting, the affidavits say.
“[Emilio] stated he created the non-attributional account to make the threats from so that no one could figure out it was him. [He] stated that he made the threats to push back and intimidate those whose beliefs he disagreed with,” the affidavits say.
The brothers also had words for the police officers who performed the search at their Absecon home last week. Among the officers who conducted the search was an Atlantic County SWAT team. “They didn’t show the warrant so we would be in our rights to blast all of their heads off because they didn’t show the paperwork…We believe in the Second Amendment,” Emilio said to the SWAT officers, according to the affidavits.
One of his terroristic threat charges was for that comment, the complaints against Emilio say.
Ricardo made offensive comments about Jews to the officers, including “6 million wasn’t enough,” referencing the Holocaust. He also said he supported his brother’s comments online, the affidavits say.
The affidavits say Ricardo purchased the assault-style weapon, a Diamondback Firearms DB15 model, in Virginia and does not have a permit for the firearm.
The brothers’ employer, Siegfried, did not immediately return a message seeking comment, nor did an attorney listed for them in court records. Their next appearance in Superior Court of Atlantic County is scheduled for mid January.
