A Cornish man who allegedly said he had the urge to set off an explosive at the University of New England was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 months in prison for a separate incident involving a threatening social media post.
Blake Tibbetts, 24, pleaded guilty on April 27 to a federal charge of transmitting a threatening interstate communication.
That charge stemmed from a post Tibbetts made on the social platform X, “in which he used a racial epithet in an angry exchange with another X user and threatened to pay ‘a visit VERY soon’ to the user’s ‘kind,’ sending ‘them’ his ‘condolences.’” according to court records.
The exchange happened in the replies to a post by political analyst Chuck Todd, who wrote: “Being angry and staying angry is a choice. Giving grace is a choice. Choose wisely. Don’t let the algorithms fool you, in the real world, folks choose grace,” according to a screenshot in court records.
On Sept. 14, 2025, Tibbetts was at a restaurant in Cornish when he said he had the urge to initiate an explosive device with the intent to harm others, specifically on a university campus, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The next day, Maine State Police found Tibbetts in Biddeford. Tibbetts allegedly confirmed that he made threatening statements while he was at the restaurant. In a statement he said that he “started having unstable emotions and confided in [name redacted] about having an unshakable desire to hurt people,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
State police said at the time that Tibbetts was charged with terrorizing, criminal use of explosives and criminal attempt to cause a catastrophe.
Federal and state law enforcement used warrants to search Tibbetts’ home and phones and were able to connect him to the threatening social media post that was the basis for the federal charge.
