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Mother Jones illustration; Unsplash; Wikimedia<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tGet your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.<\/a><\/p>\n Last week, authorities in Louisiana issued an arrest warrant for a businessman who they believe has run a vitriolic social media account that for years has harassed and threatened critics of America\u2019s largest hospital landlord\u2014Medical Properties Trust (MPT). Last year, Mother Jones and Reveal investigated MPT<\/a> and found that its business model was sinking hospitals around the country and hurting patient care.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our reporting also unravelled an extensive campaign<\/a> to silence MPT\u2019s critics. The effort included surveillance by private intelligence firms and a coordinated social media push by anonymous accounts who sent thousands of messages trying to intimidate journalists and analysts raising the possibility that MPT may be committing fraud, in part through complex loans it was secretly sending to prop up its biggest tenant and joint partner, Steward Healthcare, as it flailed financially. (The now-bankrupt Steward paid for the private intelligence firms.) It is unclear which anonymous trolls were paid for by the intelligence firm, but chief among them was an X user who goes by \u201cAbe.\u201d<\/p>\n Louisiana authorities believe they have identified the man behind Abe as Delaware\u2019s Bruce Tigani Jr. He is the son of a prominent attorney and worked at commercial real estate company Newmark until sometime in 2025. Delaware State Police confirmed to Mother Jones that Tigani was arrested in Wilmington on April 2 and charged as an out of state fugitive. He was then arraigned in local court and released on $5,000 bond. (Tigani did not respond to phone calls and an emailed list of questions.)<\/p>\n The warrant<\/a> charges Tigani with a felony for making death threats on X as Abe against a Louisiana lawmaker, state Rep. Michael Echols. For the last three years, Echols has blamed MPT for the devastation at the hospital in his district, and tried to hold the company accountable by convening public hearings and, eventually, penning legislation that targeted MPT, its board, and executives.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDelete your account..then your life\u2026assistance will be provided if you don\u2019t take your own measures,\u201d The Abe account wrote to Echols on X. \u201cYou\u2019re going to lose everything you ever even thought about loving\u2026wife? Bye\u2026kids? Bye\u2026.Sweetheart it\u2019s gonna be a long long summer you hog.. say goodbye to your children.\u201d<\/p>\n For years, Abe sent similar screeds to financial analysts who questioned the image of success that MPT, which is publicly traded, has projected to shareholders. He appeared online not long after a pair of analysts \u2014 Rob Simone at Hedgeye, a financial research firm, and an X account that goes by Big River\u2014began to publish reports asking whether MPT was hiding the damage its business was doing to hospitals with clever accounting that both overvalued its hospital real estate and papered over just how many were failing to pay rent under MPT\u2019s oppressive leases.\u00a0<\/p>\n Abe came after Simone with full force. He tweeted out Simone\u2019s address and country club, threatened his family, and asked if he had security, saying that \u201chis life is in danger.\u201d In 2023, a prominent shortselling firm called Viceroy Research published its own report <\/a>on MPT, expanding on the existing claims that the landlord was engaged in financial fraud. Abe immediately went after Viceroy too.\u00a0<\/p>\n