Florida Woman Charged for Threatening Insurance Company: ‘You People are Next”
Briana Boston was caught on tape saying, “Delay, deny, depose.”
Briana Boston, 42, of Lakeland, FL, faces jail time after she allegedly threatened the people of BlueCross BlueShield.
Authorities charged her “with threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism.”
In a recorded call, Boston said, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.”
The words “delay, deny, depose” were on the bullet casings that killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Luigi Mangione, 26, has been charged in Thompson’s murder. From WFLA:
The affidavit noted the similarities between the incidents, stating that those words have become nationally recognized as a phrase “directed against insurance companies.”
“She’s been in this world long enough that she certainly should know better that you can’t make threats like that in the current environment that we live in and think that we’re not going to follow up and put you in jail,” said Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor.
Police made contact with Boston at her home in Lakeland, where she reportedly admitted to using those words during the call, telling detectives that “healthcare companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.”
The mother of three supposedly admitted she used the phrase “because it’s what is in the news right now.”
Boston stressed she did not “mean anything by it.”
“She’s been in this world long enough that she certainly should know better that you can’t make threats like that in the current environment that we live in and think that we’re not going to follow up and put you in jail,” stated Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
It sounds like free speech to me, and the reaction is soap opera.
In lit crit death represents change, not a threat. Death of the old self. Language is where that idea is kept.
Threatening to kill someone (“you people are next”) is not protected free speech. You would think that people would learn that something that is acceptable to say in a dinner conversation among friends is not acceptable to e-mail or post to the entire world. May she have to spend a few days in jail and have to hire an expensive lawyer to get her out.
Thats not threatening to kill somebody, unless she indicates elsewhere that she’s the one aiming to do it. Otherwise, it’s just a general observation, like the one I once made predicting that by 2020, Carl Drega would be recognized as a trendsetter. (It was a swing and a miss.)
It’s a community n misconception that threats must be literal to count.
The law has no such requirement.
“The law has no such requirement.”
Since she’s a resident of, and made her comments in FL, ,you must be referring to FL law.
What specific FL statute/case “has no requirement?”
Yes, the law does have such a requirement. To be illegal it must be a “true threat”, which means an actual threat that the speaker herself is going to do the thing threatened. And it has to be in a context where a reasonable person would seriously think the person intended to carry it out.
“You’re going to die” is not a threat.
“Sooner or later someone’s going to kill you” is not a threat.
“Be afraid” is not a threat.
“If I had a gun I would shoot you” is not a threat.
“God will strike you down” is certainly not a threat.
Leoamery, it doesn’t depend on state law. This is the first amendment, so all state laws must conform or be invalid.
Who specifically, was she threatening to kill? Might as well have locked up Mangione a weekk before the shooting, because after all,, he did own a gun with inscribed bullets.
It doesn’t have to be a specific person. If someone made a true threat against everyone at a specific company, or even everyone in a specific industry, that would be unprotected speech. But it has to be a true threat.
I have found that medical professions uniformly give a huge discount if you pay cash. The reason is insurance company hassle and underpayment is avoided.
NOPE- flat out opposite in my experience. As an ardent Dave Ramsey guy I’d love nothing more than to pay cash out of pocket for services. Virtually every place we talked to charges non-insured cash payers TOP dollar.
I’d totally back legislation mandating cash on the spot payers get matched with the lowest negotiated rates of any insurance company INCLUDING mecaid and medcare.
Yow! I agree, but try asking https://www.perplexity.ai/ this question: “Why do health care providers charge cash paying patients more than they charge insured patients”. It starts out with
“Contrary to the premise of the query, health care providers often charge cash-paying patients less than insured patients for the same services. This counterintuitive phenomenon has been observed across various aspects of the healthcare system.”
Although I have found perplexity.ai to be extremely reliable, I call BS on this. It does say that
Hospitals often maintain a “chargemaster” list of prices:
These list prices are typically much higher than what insurers actually pay.
Uninsured patients are at greater risk of being billed the full chargemaster price.
But perplexity.ai should talk with my dentist.
It’s right, and it’s wrong. If you walk in for service and say you’re going to pay cash, you’ll get charged top dollar. If you talk to your doctor about future service but whine that you have no health insurance, suddenly deals begin blooming for you. The request you’re making is in both cases practically identical, but coming at it from the angle of “I’d have to pay you cash” instead of “I want to pay you cash” makes all the negotiating difference. Never thought I’d have to haggle for healthcare like auto parts in a Cairo souk but there you go.
The language would need to be more like “the lowest rate the provider has agreed to accept” from any insured patient+ their insurance company rather than the lowest negotiated rate.
Try this at a hospital or urgent care and you’ll pay 100k for a broken wrist.
If the insurance provider is already going to underpay them, why would they give you a discount even lower than that?
Because it saves them the paperwork and hassle.
Most times, even if they charged you a little MORE than they would have eventually gotten from an insurer it’s a recognizably good deal for you.
You have found incorrect. Unless someone commits to an all cash practice where they don’t take insurance then that is the opposite of the truth.
Eventually the consequences of doing dumbass or arrogant things always catches up. Those who have somehow gone through life managing to avoid serious consequences always seem surprised the moment those consequences finally arrive for them. Then their excuses and their tears flow like Niagara Falls. Don’t FAFO.
Are you talking about the woman’s comment, the insurance companies conduct, or both?
The comments and let’s be clear, the actions of the Cray Cray woman. She didn’t stand on the street to voice her opinions as a form of political speech. She didn’t express this on a FB post or on X. Her conduct wasn’t mere speech in isolation.
She phoned an Insurance Company and used the same words found on shell casings at the murder scene of an IN Exec, then told this IN Company that ‘You people are next’. Given the context, a reasonable person may very well find those actions to meet the threshold for a conviction of a terroristic threat. A Jury of her peers can decide whether they agree with that.
Does that make IN Companies the all-time ‘good guys’? Not at all. Many actions of IN Companies are, IMO, reprehensible. Especially when they institute procedures seeking to avoid paying out for legitimate claims made by their policy holders.
“She phoned an Insurance Company and used the same words found on shell casings at the murder scene of an IN Exec, then told this IN Company that ‘You people are next’.”
You don’t know that. When I read this passage, I assumed that she made this comment near the end of a long and frustrating call to BCBS about some specific claim of her own on which they were giving her the runaround..
And (doing a little more research at Yahoo), that is the case: “Boston said, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next,” near the end of her call with the insurer, which had recently denied her claims, according to the affidavit.”
Henry,
Your additional info about her being on the phone about a denied claim doesn’t move the needle for me. She called the IN Co, she used the same words written on the shell casings at the murder scene and then stated ‘You people are next’. That was enough for the Police to investigate and when she admitted all those actions they arrested her for making terroristic threats.
IMO we should believe those who make threats whether they are straightforward or implied or passive aggressive then apply whatever measures are required to counter the threat. Far too many times society ignores the statements of oddballs as ‘idle threats’.
I’ll be stupified if this case ever even gets to court.
But having said that, my original point, which I failed to express completely, is that she didn’t just call up an insurance company to say what she said, like Bart calls up Moe Syzlak, or hundreds of Democrats call up Brett Kavanaugh.
Threats are no longer taken lightly.
Except on college campuses.
I don’t think anyone’s in the mood for threats, veiled or not, after a man was just killed in Cold Blood in Broad daylight.
The problem is that when people are not in the mood for something they can forget about the constitution, and then later when the person finally comes up for trial, or more likely even later when they appeal their conviction, the mood has cooled and the accused is exonerated, after having unjustly suffered.
Yes but o be fair that’s how the criminal justice system functions in the USA. A person may at a later date ‘beat the charge, but you can’t beat the ride’. Happens every day, folks get arrested put in the Police car and booked into jail. The initial charges get modified, dropped or dismissed but they were still put into cuffs. It’s a far better system than the alternatives of street justice or mob justice.