Gary Wolchesky, 31, is a notorious child predator who made headlines for advocating for pedophiles as a persecuted minority, was subject to a viral death hoax. Wolchesky also made YouTube videos making his arguments, which added to his notoriety.
The viral tweet features a mugshot of Wolchesky included a headline that suggests that he was freed after he appealed for pedophiles as a persecuted minority. However, the appeal Wolchesky won was for his constitutional right to a speedy trial, not the arguments he made to promote pedophilia nor to win back his freedom.
Gary Wolchesky is alive and is currently serving 46 years in prison after being convicted in 2016. He was accused of grooming underage boys online using an Xbox to make friends with send and convince them to send explicit material, according to New Jersey 1015. Wolchesky must serve at least 32 years before he is eligible for parole.
According to reports, Wolchesky insisted on a trial rather than taking a plea deal. His trial was also delayed because he defended himself, which forced his victims to testify on the stand against him.
LOL OWNED pic.twitter.com/CctjTt3b8v
— Tesco (@JihadiFemboy) July 31, 2020
The tweet has another image of a news story, which says a decapitated body was found at a judge’s doorstep in Ocala, Florida and it belongs to an unnamed “notorious pedophile.” The tweet, which has over 220,000 likes and 47,000 retweets, suggested that Gary Wolchesky received street justice and is captioned “LOL Owned.”
The tweet is from a troll account with 275 followers and several of the replies on the tweet are from fake accounts. However, due to the likes and retweets, the death hoax is unwittingly being shared by real twitter accounts.
According to Snopes and Lead Stories, the “decapitated corpse story” goes back as early as 2017 and it has been used to create many fake news stories and death hoaxes. The story also claims that the predator in question is William Smith; however, the hoax involving Gary Wolchesky suggestive as it does not mention his name nor Smith in the adjacent image of the fake news report next to his mugshot.
It appears to be a social media campaign attempt by a network of fake news sites to create viral content. The original story reportedly appeared on a well-known fake website and originally claimed that the events took place in Texas rather than Florida.