FBI says stadium bomb threat was a bad joke

Print the article

This entry was posted on 10/20/2006 6:27 PM and is filed under Politics '06 - 02.



(Reuters) - A 20-year-old Wisconsin grocery store clerk charged with making a hoax threat to detonate "dirty bombs" at U.S. National Football League stadiums thought it was a joke no one would take seriously, the FBI said on Friday.

Jake Brahm, who lives at home with his parents in Wauwatosa near Milwaukee, was arrested after local police picked up rumors that he had been bragging about the hoax, Richard Ruminski, special agent in charge of the Milwaukee FBI office told reporters.

"It's a hoax. It's nonsense, not a credible threat," Ruminski said. "But in a post 9-11 world you take these threats seriously. It's almost like making a threat going onto an airplane -- you just don't do it."

Asked what Brahm, held in federal custody, was thinking, Ruminski said, "It seemed (to him) like a good idea. He thought it would be funny. Mr. Brahm put out this threat thinking that it was so preposterous no one would take him seriously."

An FBI official in Washington also said it appeared Brahm may have been involved in a contest with a Texas man trying to see which one would post the scariest threat.

Brahm appeared before U.S. Magistrate Patricia Gorence in Milwaukee to face charges filed in New Jersey that he spread a fake message on the Internet that threatened to hit the sites with weapons of mass destruction and radioactive materials.

If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He said nothing during the brief court appearance and was released on personal recognizance, meaning that he did not have to put up any money. Officials said he had no arrest record and a date for his next hearing was not set.

His "unsportsmanlike conduct caused the United States to divert valuable resources from the real battle," Leslie Wiser, FBI special agent in charge of the Newark division, told a news conference earlier. "This coming Sunday the NFL referees won't be the only ones wearing stripes."

OTHERS STATES TO DECIDE

U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said Brahm would be extradited to New Jersey to face federal charges and other states would decide whether they would charge him with offenses.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security warned National Football League officials in Miami, New York, Atlanta, Seattle, Houston, Oakland, California, and Cleveland about a dirty-bomb threat posted on Monday on an Internet site.

But by Thursday they had declared the threat a hoax.

"There's no evidence that Mr Brahm had the ability or the intention to deliver a dirty bomb to one of these stadiums," Christie said.

The complaint said Brahm's threat claimed bombs would be delivered by trucks and that the death toll from the bombs would be 100,000 from the initial blasts and countless other deaths later from the radioactive fallout.

The threat said the attacks would coincide with the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and would spark civil wars across the world, bring the global economy to a halt and allow "general chaos" to rule.

It said al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden would claim responsibility for the attacks, which he would dub "America's Hiroshima". 




 

 
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URL for this entry
  • No trackbacks exist for this entry.
Comments
    • No comments exist for this entry.
Leave a comment

Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.

 Enter the above security code (required)

 Name

 Email (will not be published)

 Website

Your comment is 0 characters limited to 3000 characters.



  
Copyright . http://BLOG.AMERICASNEWSTODAY.COM. All rights reserved.