Ohio teen receives probation instead of prison for bomb threats

Ryan Krajewski, the 19 -year -old Ohio man who pleaded guilty to five bullying counts for calling bomb threats to several secondary schools of the county to wear in January 2023, was sentenced on Friday morning by the judge of the Superior Court of the County to carry, Jeffrey Clymer, with probation instead of six years in prison.

During a long hearing of determination of the sentence that lasted more than two and a half hours, Clymer heard impact declarations on the victims of school administrators, a parent and the police.

Veronica Tobon, director of the Valparaiso Secondary School, first spoke of the morning of January 26, 2023, when her office received a call from the Valparaiso police department about a threat of bomb against the school.

It spoke of the need to put the 2,000 students in locking around 9:15 a.m. rather than allowing a period of passage. Threatening calls at Valparaiso HS, at the Portage Secondary School, at the Intermediate School of the Canton of Union and at the Valparaiso Police Service were received between January 9 and January 26. A separate case is pending in the county of Lake for alleged threats to Hobart High School also on January 26.

“Because the appellant did not get what he wanted, he continued to call,” said Tobon about multiple voicemail messages. “I just hope that the fear of students and staff is taken into account.”

The Superintendent of the Valparaiso Community Schools, Jim McCall, spoke of the altruism of the staff by searching all the corners and corners of the large school. “We had to call on our childcare and interview staff,” he said. “It is not necessarily in their job description, but it is something they have taken for the greatest good.”

McCall himself went ahead to calm frenzied parents before the school bounded early at 10:30 am, Todd Dicarlo, a federal law enforcement agent and member of Swat, became one of these frantic parents when his son’s mother called him and said he had to go to school.

“Fear in his voice is something that I will never forget,” he said, his voice breaks.

Dicarlo said that the level of chaos coming from these threats “could have caused a student or a member of the staff accidentally killed and killed”.

McCall told Clymer that he had returned to the building to monitor the rooms while the students who left early. “There was a wide range of emotions,” he said. “Some not affected, some eager to leave school and some emotionally distraught.”

Deputy chief Mark Lamotte of the VPD told Clymer that for an hour and forty-five minutes, two of the three advanced life support ambulances of the city and a fire was parked in front of VHS, “depriving the rest of the city of these resources”.

When the remarks for the state is closed, the Deputy Prosecutor of the County to Porter, Mary Ryan, asked Clymer to condemn Krajewski for three years to level 5 consecutively crime. She talked about the tone and vulgarity of Krajewski messages.

“He tells them that” the corpses will be on your head, “she said.

“He sees the world that everything is around him. He sees it as a joke, that it does not matter. No one was injured,” she added. “What do you think you’re going to be in the future? You have to look at this.”

Clymer said he had certainly looked at this. He also examined the aggravating factors of Krajewski’s criminal history of the county’s events to wear, as well as the alleged Hobart event. In favor of the accused, his will to plead guilty against the advice of his lawyer and his age.

“I really find that the accused’s youth is an attenuating factor,” said Clymer, adding that the various mental health diagnoses of Krajewski also scare him.

Krajewski’s defense lawyer John Vouga had pleaded in Clymer to consider his youth, the fact that he was 16 years old at the time of crimes and his respect for judicial orders and the County minors’ detention center to wear since then. He said that Krajewski’s locking in prison would subject him to violence, trauma, sexual and physical assault, even suicide.

Even “six months will be sentenced to life for this boy” if he is imprisoned, he said. “I ask you with the greatest intensity. If he goes to prison, he has no therapy to hope. He has the survival to worry. “

Krajewski himself addressed the Court briefly. “I want to start by sincerely apologizing to the court,” he said. “I lacked steering and maturity, but I have grown since then.” He spoke of holding a full -time job and being in a stable relationship. “I respectfully ask for forgiveness of those I affected,” he added, his cute voice.

Krajewski’s probation terms, according to the determination order, include 90 days of home detention; continuous mental health treatment; and following internet restrictions imposed by the court. He must also finish 250 hours of community service, not near a school.

Clymer said that Krajewski’s cooperation with the judicial orders led him to believe that he is not presenting a risk of recurrence. “If I thought you did it, you would go to prison this afternoon,” he told him. “I don’t want you to go to prison. Prison is a dangerous place, but if you violate this probation, that’s where you will go. You are an adult. “

Shelley Jones is a journalist independent of the post-distribute.