Jason Keith Smith, Telephone Bomb Threats, California 2015

SAN JOSE, California - A Michigan man pleaded guilty yesterday to charges related to multiple telephone bomb threats he made to San Benito High School, announced United States Attorney Melinda Haag and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson.

Jason Keith Smith, 30, of Lincoln Park, Michigan, admitted to making the threats in his plea agreement.

In November 2012, Smith began sending threatening internet messages to a student at San Benito High School in Hollister, California. In one instance, Smith sent the student a text message indicating that someone would be hurt unless she contacted him.

Smith admitted that in early December 2012, he knowingly placed a number of telephone bomb threats from his home in Michigan to San Benito High School. Specifically, on December 2 and 3, 2012, defendant placed a call to San Benito High School claiming to be a police detective, stating that the student, to whom he had sent threatening messages, was in trouble with the law and requesting that she contact him.

The defendant admitted in his plea agreement that, on December 3, 2012, he called San Benito High School and left a series of telephone bomb threats on the school attendance message. In one of these messages, the defendant said that there was a bomb in the high school and that people should run and hide. The defendant further admitted that he left another telephone message indicating that no one knew where he had placed the bomb, but he would blow the school to pieces.

Smith was charged in an indictment filed in San Jose federal district court on February 19, 2014, with Interstate Communications (Threat) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c). Smith has been in federal custody since October 6, 2014.

After Smith's guilty plea, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh set the matter for sentencing on June 3, 2015, at 9:30 a.m. in San Jose. The maximum statutory penalty for Interstate Communications (Threat) is 5 years prison, a $250,000 fine, and 3 years of supervised release.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/michigan-man-pleads-guilty-making-telephone-bomb-threats-san-benito-high-school