A former lab supervisor at Northeastern University has been convicted of staging a hoax explosion on the Boston campus after which mendacity about what occurred to a federal agent.
Jason Duhaime, 46, from San Antonio, Texas, was convicted on three counts Friday by a federal jury. He faces as much as 5 years in jail and a effective of as much as $250,000 for every offense.
Two attorneys representing Duhamie withdrew from the case in January, courtroom paperwork present. A public defender who changed them couldn’t instantly be reached for remark Saturday.
Northeastern University
Duhaime labored because the college’s new expertise supervisor and director of the Immersive Media Lab. In September 2022, he referred to as the college police to say he’d collected a number of packages from a mail space, together with two Pelican exhausting plastic instances, and that when he opened one of many instances, it exploded and sharp objects flew out and injured his arms.
Duhaime’s 911 name sparked a serious response from regulation enforcement, who evacuated the realm and referred to as within the bomb squad.
The incident additionally triggered a panic on campus, CBS Boston reported on the time.
“Throughout the course of our investigation, we consider he repeatedly lied to us about what occurred contained in the lab, faked his accidents and wrote a rambling letter directed on the lab — threatening extra violence,” FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Joseph Bonavolonta stated at a 2022 information convention.
He confirmed police the letter he stated he discovered contained in the case, which claimed the lab was attempting to get folks to reside inside a digital actuality world and was secretly working with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the U.S. authorities.
“In the case you bought immediately we might have planted explosives however not this time!!!” the notice learn, courtroom paperwork present. “Take discover!!! You have 2 months to take operations down or else!!!!!”
But Duhaime’s story rapidly unraveled, in keeping with the FBI. They did not discover something within the instances and famous the letter seemed to be in pristine situation. The FBI stated Duhaime had superficial accidents to his arms, however no injury to his shirt sleeves. And when brokers searched Duhaime’s laptop, they discovered a duplicate of the letter in a backup folder that he’d written just a few hours earlier than calling 911.
“Bomb hoaxes just like the one the defendant fabricated right here have actual life penalties. Communities are put in worry, regulation enforcement personnel are diverted from different necessary duties and there are vital monetary repercussions,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy stated in an announcement. “As we expertise a wave of bomb hoaxes in faculties, homes of worship and different gathering locations, we are going to work carefully with our native, state and federal companions to carry accountable anybody who tries to inject worry and misery into our neighborhood.”
Northeastern, a personal college, has greater than 18,000 undergraduate college students and 22,000 graduate college students.
Duhaime is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 2.
