Man posted ICE lawyer’s address, called on others to ‘swat’ her in CA, feds say
A California man accused of harassing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer for more than a year posted her name and address online, calling on others to “swat” her at her home, federal prosecutors said.
Gregory John Curcio, 68, of Santa Monica, is now criminally charged with doxxing and harassing the ICE lawyer on Facebook and another social media platform, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a Sept. 23 news release.
Doxxing involves sharing someone’s personal or private information maliciously.
“Contrary to what some misguided individuals think, doxxing federal agents and employees is not a harmless crime,” acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, of the Central District of California, said in a statement. “It endangers the agent’s personal safety and that of their family.”
Information on Curcio’s legal representation was not immediately available.
Curcio has been arrested and charged with “violating a federal law designed for the protection of individuals performing certain official duties,” prosecutors said.
The ICE lawyer told law enforcement that she knows Curcio but never met him, according to prosecutors. She said Curcio used to live at a Santa Monica apartment complex run by her mother.
The lawyer accused Curcio of harassing and threatening her mother for several years.
Curcio is charged over two online posts targeting the lawyer in February, according to prosecutors.
In the post shared to Facebook, Curcio identified her as an ICE agent while encouraging people to “swat” her, prosecutors said.
Swatting is a type of harassment that involves making a fake emergency call to initiate a law enforcement response at a certain location.
In the other social media post, prosecutors said Curcio included instructions for swatting the ICE lawyer.
The criminal complaint accuses Curcio of making false allegations against the lawyer and her family and harassing them since January 2024, according to prosecutors.
As an agency, ICE has come under scrutiny in recent months, including over conditions in the agency’s detention centers and arrests made at courthouses.
A federal lawsuit amended as a class action complaint in northern California on Sept. 18 argues ICE is holding newly arrested immigrants for too long inside overcrowded holding centers with poor conditions, McClatchy News reported.
The lawsuit challenges the detentions as well as ICE’s practice of arresting people who show up to immigration court for their hearings.
In an emailed statement to McClatchy News on Sept. 21, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Public Affairs Secretary Tricia McLaughlin commented on the lawsuit and said “the ability of law enforcement to make arrests of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense.”
She also said accusations of poor conditions in ICE detention centers are false.
A new study raising concerns on conditions found that the number of people held in solitary confinement by ICE has reached “unprecedented” levels in the past decade, with numbers surging under the second Trump administration, McClatchy News reported.
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