Florida Teen Arrested After Allegedly Trying to Hire Hitman

A Florida teenager is in jail after he allegedly wrote several messages on Instagram in which he tried to hire a hitman to kill one of the staff members at his high school, the Pasco County Sheriff's Department said Friday.

Nicholas Godfrey, 18, who is a student at Fivay High School in Hudson, Florida, was arrested and charged late Thursday with first-degree attempt to solicit murder, the Pasco County Sheriff's office said. According to Sheriff Chris Nocco said the student had written several threatening messages on Instagram, including one that read, "No joke, I need him eliminated as soon as possible."

"That person he tried to kill was a member of the Fivay staff," Sheriff Nocco said during a Friday morning press conference about the case. "You threaten a member of the school district who is out there trying to do their job, to educate children ... we're going to track you down."

Nocco says the messages by Godfrey seeking a professional killer are considered threats.

"I need a guy who could kill someone," Godfrey allegedly wrote in one of the messages posted to the Fivay Fan Club. "We have $100,000 for the victim's head."

Investigators were able to track Godfrey down after they obtained a search warrant and traced the IP address back to the Florida teenager's home in New Port Richey. Nocco said when police showed up at the home, the student's parents were shocked their son had been writing those kinds of threatening messages online. Detectives say Godfrey admitted to sending the messages and handed over the phone he'd used to make the posts.

Even if the teenager had no intention of actually hiring the hitman, the threat itself is a serious crime, Nocco said.

"As the victim and their family, imagine getting that notification form the sheriff's office, 'Hey we need to protect you,'" Nocco said. "This individual may have thought it was funny, maybe thought they were committing a joke. This is not a joke."

Godfrey does not have a discipline record and there were no other documented issues between him and the school staffer he'd targeted, officials said.

“I want to thank the Pasco Sheriff’s Office and Corporal Josh Peters for their intensive work and resources used to identify and arrest this student,” Fivay principal Jason Joens wrote on Facebook.

"It ruined his life by a simple threat on social media," Pasco County Schools Superintendent Kurt Browning said. "I was elated that we had apprehended him but very saddened, very saddened by what this young man has just done to the rest of his life."

Photo: Pasco County Sheriff's Office