Jul 2, 2008 10:22 pm US/Central
UIC Student Pleads Guilty To E-Mail Threats
CHICAGO (STNG) ―
A UIC student pleaded guilty Tuesday to sending university officials e-mail threats about a "mass shooting" at the Near West Side campus in February.
Mahtab Shirani pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting interstate commerce a communication threatening to injure others Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo, according to federal court records. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 23 at 1 p.m.
Shirani, of the 200 block of West Roosevelt Road in Wheaton, changed her plea Tuesday after initally pleading not guilty to the charges in March. She was initially arrested on state charges of felony disorderly conduct charges for the Feb. 15 emails sent a day after the Northern Illinois University massacre. The state charges were dropped and federal charges were filed in February against Shirani.
Shirani sent an anonymous email to an UIC administrator threatening a repeat of the NIU shootings. The email said a group of five individuals would carry out the attack sometime during the spring 2008 semester, according to a release from the FBI.
The email said, "I am aiming to kill as many as I can… after NIU, it's UIC's turn to face disaster," according to state prosecutors.
UIC police used surveillance video from the campus computer laboratory Shirani used to send the email and her computer ID to track the email back to Shirani.
(Source: Sun-Times News Group Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2008. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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