Anthony Rae, Serial Bomb Threats, Massachusetts 2015

A Stoughton man was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release for emailing bomb threats to multiple schools and universities in three different states.

Anthony Rae, 25, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani to approximately 17 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In October 2016, he pleaded guilty to five counts of sending bomb threats.

Over the course of nine months, Rae used several different email accounts to send bomb threats to educational institutions in three different states. In October 2014, Rae sent two emails from a Gmail account he created threatening to bomb an elementary school in Chicago, Ill., and several public schools in Norwood, Mass.

Subsequently, Rae hacked his mother’s Hotmail account and used it to send two separate bomb threats to his own school – ITT Technical Institute in Norwood. In June 2015, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant for Rae’s residence and seized numerous electronic devices.

The following day, Rae used a computer available to tenants in his apartment complex to send a bomb threat to Rhode Island College in Providence. On June 19, 2015, he was arrested and charged in state court for the Massachusetts’ threats and in October 2015, Rae was charged federally.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division, made the announcement today. This case was also investigated by the Chicago Police Department’s Arson Section, Norwood and Stoughton Police Departments, Rhode Island State Police Computer Crimes Unit, and the Rhode Island College and North Carolina State University Campus Police Departments.

Significant assistance was also provided by the Massachusetts Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council’s Cyber Crimes Unit and the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Jordi de Llano of Ortiz’s Criminal Division prosecuted the case.

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