The article says this guy faces four felony counts and that charges are "making false reports concerning the planting of a bomb or the use of firearms," which is a 2nd degree felony in Florida and carries a possible penalty of up to 15 years, but it says they're charging the hate crime enhancement, which bumps a 2nd degree felony to 1st degree, which is up to 30 years. The article mentions three mosque calls and one to a courthouse. Assuming the courthouse one doesn't have the hate crime enhancement, that means up to 105 years if he got convicted and maxed out on all four, enhanced on three, with everything running consecutive. That could be off because the article doesn't have specifics, but the guy is definitely looking at huge potential liability if he goes to trial and the prosecutor will have a ton of leverage in plea negotiations.
What's strange is that Florida is prosecuting him instead of the feds. These kinds of interstate crimes are exactly the type that should be prosecuted by the feds. I'm sure it's happened before, but I can't recall ever seeing a high profile swatting prosecution in a state court. Usually state swatting cases are simple situations where a a dumbass kid calls in a bomb threat to his school. That's what most of the case law is about with this Florida statute.
In this case, it doesn't sound like the guy was in Florida when he made the calls. Does that mean the crime was committed in Florida such that Florida has jurisdiction to prosecute? Probably, but it's a hell of a lot messier than a federal prosecution, where the fact that the call was made across state lines leaves no doubt the feds have jurisdiction.
Florida prosecuting the case also makes roping in any other people involved more complicated and therefore less likely, imo. For example, say this guy tells prosecutors "I can give you my best customer, Fatrick." Florida wouldn't be able to prosecute Fatrick, so they have no incentive to deal. That would necessarily be done on the fed level because, again, they have jurisdiction over all parties involved in these kinds of interstate crimes. Same goes for coconspirators, where it's much easier for the feds to both locate and arrest them and negotiate deals than it is for Florida.
So the story is that the FBI does an investigation and cracks the case, which clearly involves federal charges, only for the US Attorney to hand it off for a state level prosecution. Am I to believe that some power mad, ambitious US Attorney said "now that my glownigger henchmen have made the case, I don't want any of the glory of locking up the most prolific and high profile swatter in US history, so I'm passing this off to my lowly brethren in Florida, a state that my boss's administration despises"? That doesn't make sense.
The most likely explanation is that the case isn't airtight for one reason or another. The federal conviction rate at trial is like 99%, and they're known to only take slam dunk cases and leave everything else to the state courts. Especially given the high profile nature of this case, that's the only reason I can think of as to why they would give it to Florida.