SAN ANTONIO - A Texas man was sentenced to more than a year in federal prison for spreading a COVID-19 hoax on social media in which he falsely claimed to have paid someone infected with the virus to lick items at a grocery store, authorities said.Christopher Charles Perez, a 40-year-old from San Antonio, was found guilty of two counts for violating a federal law that criminalizes false information and hoaxes related to biological weapons, according to the U.S.
Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Texas. Evidence presented during the trial showed that Perez posted two threatening messages on Facebook in April of 2020 in which he claimed to have paid someone infected with COVID-19 "to lick items at grocery stores in the San Antonio.