MIAMI — In the latest episode over the proliferation of fake news and the people who believe it, a Tampa woman who thinks the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Conn., was staged has been charged with threatening a parent of one of the slain children.

The woman, Lucy Richards, 57, faces four counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce. Ms. Richards sent four messages in January that said things such as: “You gonna die. Death is coming to you real soon,” according to an indictment made public on Wednesday.

Ms. Richards’s belief “that the school shooting was a hoax and never happened allegedly motivated her to make the charged threats,” the United States attorney’s office in Miami said in a statement. Each charge carries a maximum five-year sentence upon conviction.

According to the indictment, the threats were sent to a parent identified only as “L.P.” The initials are an apparent reference to Lenny Pozner, whose son, Noah, was the youngest of 20 children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School four years ago.