Miami Man Sentenced to 2 Years in Federal Prison for X Posts Threatening to Execute Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem

A Miami man who used the social media platform X to post that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem would be executed at specific times has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison, federal prosecutors in South Florida announced on Thursday, Nov. 12. Jon Christopher Enriquez, 47, had pleaded guilty to three counts of transmitting threats through interstate communications.

The case, prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, involved threats against two of the most prominent figures in the Trump administration's Western Hemisphere policy, one of them a Miami native and former U.S. senator from Florida. At the time of the posts, Noem was no longer secretary of homeland security. She was serving as the State Department's special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, a role she took after President Donald Trump removed her from the Department of Homeland Security in March.

What prosecutors said he posted

According to prosecutors, Enriquez made three separate public posts on X over the course of the afternoon of May 27, 2026, directed at Rubio and Noem. Among other things, the posts threatened that both officials would be executed at specific times, according to the Justice Department. The government has not released the full text of the posts, and news reports on the case have not reproduced them.

Enriquez pleaded guilty this summer to three counts of transmitting threats through interstate communications, one for each post. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the plea on Aug. 5. Each count carried a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, for a combined statutory maximum of 15 years.

How the case unfolded

The case moved from social media posts to a federal prison sentence in under six months. The key dates, drawn from Justice Department announcements and news reports, are below.

In its August release, the U.S. Attorney's Office referred to Noem by her title at the time of the posts, "Special Envoy," rather than as homeland security secretary, the post that made her a national figure in immigration enforcement. Some later news coverage described her simply as the former head of the Department of Homeland Security.

The sentence

Enriquez received two years in federal prison, NBC 6 South Florida and CBS Miami reported. The Spanish-language wire service EFE reported that the sentence was handed down on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami. Federal judges set sentences after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors, including the nature of the offense, the defendant's history and the need for deterrence.

Acting U.S. Attorney Yara Lorenzo Klukas announced the sentence. "These are not harmless words," she said, according to CBS Miami, which also reported that she described the threats as "serious federal crimes with serious consequences."

When the plea was announced in August, then-U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones said, according to WLRN: "Threatening to execute public officials is not political speech, it is a federal crime." He added that Enriquez "used a public platform to issue repeated, specific threats against Secretary Rubio and Special Envoy Noem." Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Y. Carré prosecuted the case.

Who investigated

The investigation was led by the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, the federal law enforcement agency that protects the secretary of state, among other duties. It was assisted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the City of Miami Police Department and the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, according to prosecutors.

The mix of agencies reflects how threats against federal officials posted online are often handled in Florida: a federal agency tied to the protected official leads the case, while state and local partners help identify, locate and interview the person behind the account. Prosecutors did not publicly describe the circumstances of Enriquez's arrest.

Why Rubio and Noem matter to Florida

Rubio was born in Miami, served in the Florida House of Representatives, including as House speaker, and represented Florida in the U.S. Senate from 2011 until January 2025, when he became secretary of state. He has also served as the president's national security adviser. As the nation's top diplomat, he has driven the administration's pressure campaign on Cuba and Venezuela, policies followed closely in South Florida's large Cuban American and Venezuelan American communities.

Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, led the Department of Homeland Security from January 2025 until Trump removed her in early March 2026 and named Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her. Days later, on March 7, she appeared at the Shield of the Americas summit in Doral, in Miami-Dade County, where she thanked the president for creating the coalition and for giving her the opportunity to serve as special envoy. The State Department-based coalition is focused on security and anti-cartel cooperation across the Western Hemisphere.

Noem's time as special envoy has since ended. A spokesperson said she would remain at the State Department as a senior adviser working on the Shield of the Americas, and a statement on her X account described the envoy post as "always a six-month appointment," according to reports.

Where the line falls on threats

Federal law makes it a crime to transmit in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing a threat to injure another person, and posts on national social media platforms meet the interstate requirement. Under the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Counterman v. Colorado, prosecutors in true-threat cases must show that a defendant at least recklessly disregarded a substantial risk that the statements would be understood as threats of violence. By pleading guilty, Enriquez admitted the elements of the three counts.

The two-year term is well below the 15-year combined statutory maximum. In federal cases, the advisory sentencing guidelines, rather than the statutory ceiling, usually set the range a judge starts from. Factors such as whether a defendant took steps toward carrying out a threat, criminal history and acceptance of responsibility through a guilty plea all weigh in the guidelines calculation.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida framed the case as a matter of public safety rather than speech, a theme Reding Quiñones stressed when he said the posts were "not political speech."

What's next

Enriquez will serve his sentence in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons. Prosecutors did not announce in public reports whether the sentence includes a term of supervised release after his prison term or whether he intends to appeal. Federal court records list the case as 26-cr-20239 in the Southern District of Florida.