What’s new?

A federal judge will now wait until at least the end of August to set a trial… What’s new?

A federal judge will now wait until at least the end of August to set a trial date for a former Pitt student accused of calling in bomb threats for two University buildings in April 2008.

How we got to this point:

Around April 9, 2008, someone called the University police and threatened to use an explosive to destroy the Cathedral of Learning. About two days later, someone called them again, this time threatening twice to destroy Posvar Hall.

This past January, workers in U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan’s office indicted Louisa Ewuresi Nkrumah, of Harrisburg, for three counts of calling in threats to “unlawfully damage or destroy a building,” accusing her of making these calls.

Before federal judges could set a trial date for Nkrumah, they had to give her and her lawyer, Cynthia Reed Eddy, a chance to file pre-trial motions.

Pre-trial motions are anything that would affect the need to have or the conduct of a trial. They can include a range of requests. In some cases, lawyers will ask judges to exclude certain pieces of evidence from a trial; sometimes, they could be unrelated to a trial, such as when a lawyer asks for an extension because an emergency arose.

This is at least the fourth time a federal judge has extended Nkrumah’s deadline to file pre-trial motions. They were originally due April 15; then, a judge moved the deadline to June 1, then July 1, then July 31 and now to August 31.

Each time, Judge Nora Barry Fischer has said in court documents that she chose to extend the deadlines to give Reed Eddy “reasonable time necessary for effective preparation.”

What’s next?

If the deadlines remain intact, a judge will set a trial date for Nkrumah shortly after the August 31 deadline to file pre-trial motions.

If Fischer extends the deadline again, Nkrumah’s trial date might not be set until the end of September, or even later.