Florida man who spit in cop’s face now hit with federal bioweapons charges

Federal authorities have charged a man who allegedly spit in the face of a police officer and falsely claimed to have coronavirus, with perpetrating a “biological weapons hoax.” At the end of March, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) distributed a memo to prosecutors that said, in part, that coronavirus “appears to meet the statutory definition of a ‘biological agent,'” and that “the purposeful exposure and infection of others with Covid-19” could be possible grounds for terrorism charges. Under US law, a “biological agent” means “any microorganism…or infectious substance, or any naturally occurring, bioengineered or synthesized component of any such microorganism or infectious substance, capable of causing…death, disease, or other biological malfunction in a human, an animal, a plant, or another living organism.”