Photo: @JacobAWohl/Twitter

Over the past year or so, it seemed as if there could be multiple avenues for prosecutors to pursue a case against conservative provocateur and zoomer troll Jacob Wohl. There was his failed plot in late 2018 to frame Robert Mueller of sexual assault by reportedly offering a woman $20,000 to accuse the former special counsel of abusing her in 1974. In April, he tried out a similar bungled scam to smear 2020 hopeful Pete Buttigieg with invented claims of sexual assault. Those efforts were ill-advised, if not directly illegal, though he may have strayed on the wrong side of the law when he appeared to file a false police report in Minnesota, claiming he received death threats from a Twitter account he made himself.

After a year of smear campaigns, fake private-intelligence agencies, and using his mom’s phone to spread his Mueller hoax, the 21-year-old is now facing a felony charge in California. As is common in circumstances of legally questionable behavior, it was the money that got him in trouble. On Wednesday, a state superior court in Riverside County issued felony arrest warrants for Wohl and his former business partner Matthew Johnson, on an unlawful sale of securities.

The charge is related to one of Wohl’s very first scams, back when he was selling himself as a teenage securities wunderkind. In 2017, the National Futures Association received a complaint about Wohl’s financial company Montgomery Assets; an investor claimed that he received statements boasting his $75,000 parked with Wohl had grown, but when he tried to cash out, Wohl only returned $44,000. An investigation found that Wohl had claimed he had nine years of trading experience — meaning his career in finance began around age 9. As a teenager, he was banned from the NFA for life.

The three-year statute of limitations on the case was going to expire at the end of August, so prosecutors decided just in time to pursue the felony charge. Wohl will be arraigned on October 24.