Former student indicted for bomb threats

A federal grand jury indicted a former Pitt student Wednesday for making threats that forced… A federal grand jury indicted a former Pitt student Wednesday for making threats that forced police to evacuate the Cathedral of Learning and Posvar Hall last April. Louisa Ewuresi Nkrumah, 20, of Harrisburg, allegedly called the Pitt police to ‘willfully threaten that real or personal property would be unlawfully damaged or destroyed by means of an explosive,’ the indictment said. Nkrumah, who did not know about the indictment until yesterday afternoon,’ declined to comment on the charges. Margaret Philbin, a spokeswoman for Mary Beth Buchanan, the federal attorney serving Western Pennsylvania who announced the indictment Wednesday, explained why Nkrumah wouldn’t have known about the charges yet. ‘The procedure is that we issue a news release upon indictment, and the court issues a summons in the mail,’ she said. She said Nkrumah will receive a summons in the mail to appear before the court in Pittsburgh for arraignment’ Feb. 4. The maximum sentence for the charges is 30 years in prison, a $750,000 fine or both, said U..S. Attorney Constance M. Bowden, who presented the case to the grand jury, in a news release. The sentence varies depending upon the seriousness of the offenses and the defendant’s prior criminal history. Pitt police Chief Tim Delaney said it was nice to have an indictment, after spending months investigating the case and preparing to file the charges. ‘We were very successful in what we did here,’ said Delaney. ‘It’s very difficult to get points of origin on bomb threats.’ Pitt police received a threat from a caller whose voice was electronically disguised shortly before 5 p.m. on April 9, 2008. The threat targeted the Cathedral of Learning. Police received threats before 8:30 a.m. two days later for Posvar Hall. This caller’s voice ‘was very similar’ and also electronically disguised, Pitt police officer Ron Bennett said last April. Pitt police chief Tim Delaney said yesterday that the calls caused Pitt police officers to evacuate the buildings and forced professors to reschedule tests. He added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, firemen and medics also responded to the threats. ‘The total cost [for the response] was in the thousands for, as I call it, a selfish act,’ he said.