A former U.S. Marine who wrote online threats about plans to kill white people at a New Jersey grocery store and gym has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.
Joshua Cobb, 24, of Hamilton, will also be subject to three years of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey said Thursday.
In court papers, federal investigators detailed threats Cobb wrote on social media, statements he made to federal agents, and content found on his cellphone, which investigators seized in April 2023.
He mentioned two possible attack locations, a Jersey Strong gym and an Aldi grocery store in Robbinsville, and said he had access to guns and the willingness to kill a lot of people, authorities said.
In a December 2022 post in which he threatened white people, Cobb also wrote that the attack would occur in New Jersey in 2023.
He said the date would be, “close to an important holiday to their race. I have a location in mind already which I have frequented for the past year and I am certain nobody there is armed to be able to stop me from spraying them to the ground.”
Cobb went on to write “white men and women in New Jersey, get ready. You are going to feel my pain very (expletive) soon. I put that on my life. From here on out I don’t want to talk, my rounds are going to, after they exit the back of all your heads. Get ready New Jersey. The devil is coming.”
Cobb joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2023 and began basic training in June of that year. He was stationed in California until his discharge in May 2024 when the U.S. Marine Corps learned about this case from law enforcement.
From February to May 2023, Cobb used the online name “ldayUsuffer” to post critiques of federal gun laws.
He also described torturing cats, divulged his own mental illness, and spoke of the struggles of being a young Black man from poverty.
Cobb pleaded guilty last year to transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.
Stories by Jeff Goldman
Stories by Kevin Shea
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