After Libs of TikTok and other far-right accounts amplified attacks on Boston Children's Hospital's pediatric gender program in August 2022, Catherine Leavy of Westfield, Massachusetts called in a hoax bomb threat. The FBI arrested her on September 15, 2022; she pleaded guilty in September 2023 and was sentenced in July 2024 to three years of probation. The hospital was targeted with additional bomb threats over the following months.
What happened
On August 30, 2022, Boston Children's Hospital received a phone call claiming a bomb was on the way. The hospital evacuated and went on lockdown. The threat was a hoax.
The caller was Catherine Leavy, 37, of Westfield, Massachusetts. The FBI arrested her on September 15, 2022. A federal grand jury indicted her on October 7. She pleaded guilty in September 2023 to making a false bomb threat and to intentionally conveying false information that a bomb was headed to the hospital. In July 2024 she was sentenced to three years of probation.
The hospital was targeted with more bomb threats over the following months, including one in November 2022.
How it started
The call followed weeks of organized targeting. Earlier in August, Boston Children's Hospital warned its employees about a coordinated online harassment campaign aimed at its pediatric gender program. Libs of TikTok and other far-right accounts had been amplifying claims about the program's care. Staff names and images circulated online.
Leavy called during that campaign. She told investigators she disapproved of the hospital's care for transgender youth. Reporting on the period tied the wave of threats to the same online targeting.
Why this case matters
This case ended in a conviction, which is rare. Most doxxing-amplification campaigns produce harassment, threats, and disruption without a single criminal charge. The speech that drives them is usually protected, and the harassment is spread across too many anonymous people for prosecutors to charge.
The hoax call was the act that became a federal crime. Once Leavy made it, prosecutors had a specific person and a specific charge to bring.
For the staff named during those weeks, the conviction is accountability for one caller. It does not remove anyone's information from anywhere. Their names still sit on broker pages, and a broker page ties a name to a home address and the people who live there.
What this means for you
If you provide care that draws political attention, this is the pattern to understand. A large social media account names your employer or your clinic. Your own name gets attached soon after. From there, a broker search can connect that name to your home address. See what physicians face for the fuller picture.
The criminal-law backstop is narrow. It reaches the rare person who makes a federal threat by phone. It does not reach the broader problem of address exposure, which runs through data brokers, as in the Bernard case earlier that year.
Frontline Privacy finds those broker listings, files removals, and keeps re-checking, because listings tend to come back.
What reduces this risk
Most amplification-doxxing campaigns produce no prosecution. Naming a hospital and inviting outrage is usually protected speech, and the harassment is spread across too many anonymous people for prosecutors to charge. The Leavy case is a rare exception, because one participant made a federal bomb threat. Hospital staff, physicians, and clinic workers named in these campaigns rarely get a case they can point to. Their home addresses stay live on broker pages, reachable by the same audience that just learned their name and employer. The practical fix is standing removal across the commercial sites that publish home addresses by name, kept current because listings tend to reappear.
Public sources
- Westfield Woman Charged with Hoax Bomb Threat Against Boston Children's Hospital — U.S. Department of Justice (Massachusetts), 2022-09-15
- Westfield Woman Indicted for Alleged Hoax Bomb Threat Made to Boston Children's Hospital — U.S. Department of Justice (Massachusetts), 2022-10-07
- Westfield Woman Pleads Guilty to Making Hoax Bomb Threat Against Boston Children's Hospital — U.S. Department of Justice (Massachusetts), 2023-09-01
- Westfield Woman Sentenced for Making Hoax Bomb Threat Against Boston Children's Hospital — U.S. Department of Justice (Massachusetts), 2024-07-01
- Woman sentenced for making hoax bomb threat against Boston Children's — NBC Boston, 2024-07-22
- Boston Children's Hospital received another bomb threat, police say all clear — Boston.com, 2022-11-16
- Children's hospitals are the latest target of anti-LGBTQ+ harassment — NPR, 2022-08-26