A man who dressed as The Joker has been jailed for making terrorist threats despite claiming he was "joking".
Jeremy Garnier, 51, of Univeristy City in Missouri was convicted on Friday, September 16, of making threats to bomb and murder people, while dressed up as the famous fictional villain from the Batman series.
Garnier pleaded guilty to the charge of making a terrorist threat and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
The incident in question occurred in March 2020 when Garnier was arrested during a live stream within which he ordered a soft drink.
"I can’t be inebriated when I’m planning on, you know, killing a bunch of people," he said.
Prosecutors had to refile the case this year when St. Louis County Associate Circuit Judge Amanda McNelley dismissed the case because prosecutors were unable to produce a witness for the jury.
He was not armed when he was arrested and Garnier was held on a bail charge equivalent to £65,000.
During the stream, the convicted criminal was seen driving in his car and smoking a pipe.
He is now not allowed within 300 metres of the Galleria and Blueberry Hill restaurant where he was arrested.
When they refiled, prosecutors downgraded the charge from a felony to a misdemeanour.
He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "I was talking like The Joker. I was in character.
"Everybody knew that it was a joke and that I had no intentions of following through with a threat."
The jailed "joker" said he is hoping to use his platform to raise awareness about drug addiction.
He has previously served more than 20 years in both federal and state prisons.
During the 1980s, he tried to rob a credit union to fund his addiction to crack cocaine.
"Think before you act," he said.
"Your actions have repercussions. No matter how trivial and joking I thought it was, people took it seriously."
Garnier's threats may have caused concern due to a previous incident in the US in 2012, in which a man attacked a showing of a Batman film in Aurora, Colorado.
People were attending a screening of The Dark Knight Rises when gunman James Holmes burst in and murdered 12 people, injuring several more.
Holmes, dressed like The Joker character, received multiple life sentences.
Psychiatrist William H. Reid, who wrote the book 'A Dark Night in Aurora: Inside James Holmes and the Colorado Mass Shootings', said Holmes was "unique" and was not sure if the shooter would kill again given the chance.
He revealed it was hard to predict why Holmes committed the horrific acts in Aurora.
