June 18, 09

NEWS / Oakwood, Virginia Man Admits Making Online Threats Allen Sammons Threatened to Travel to Several Uni

United States Attorney Julia C. Dudley announced today that Allen Leon Sammons, age 28, of Oakwood, Virginia, pled guilty last week in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Abingdon to charges related to threats of violence the defendant posted online.

Sammons was indicted earlier this year and charged with five counts of transmitting in interstate commerce a communication threatening to injure the person of another. Yesterday in District Court, Sammons pled guilty to all five counts he faced.

“The investigation and apprehension of this individual is a true testament to how well law enforcement agencies across the country can react to a threat and keep our friends and neighbors safe,” United States Attorney Julia C. Dudley said today. “The information sharing among the federal, state and local agencies was crucial to the success of this investigation. I cannot thank each one of them enough.”

Sammons admitted in court yesterday that on several different occasions he sent e-mail messages to individuals or posted messages on livejournal.com, a social networking website that allows artists and authors to post their work and have others comment on it, that contained threats to harm others. Some of those messages are as follows.

On December 29, 2007, Sammons posted on livejournal.com the message:

“the blood of [C.W.], [D.T.], and my own is on your hands. Its something you will have to live with for the rest of your lives, you should have just let it go and left me alone. Only thing im [sic] waiting for is the rejection letter. You are at fault.”

One minute later Sammons posted this message:

“I will be killing them with luck I’ll be killed also..if not I’ll plee [sic] insanity...doesn’t matter anymore...you are at fault...the blood is on your hands...” Later in the evening he continued. “I know you think it’s a joke and not real. The blood of [C.W.], [D.T.] and my own in on your hands.”

On December 30, 2007, Sammons again posted a message on Livejournal.com, again making a threat of violence to others on the site.

“You should have let it go, you should have let it go, but you had to pretend to be a bad a– and now I’ve been pushed to far and tragic things are going to take place. If you could have just let us part ways than [D] would not be dead.”

On January 9, 2008, Sammons received an e-mail from the Rice University Admissions Department requesting SAT subject scores. Sammons replied with the following:

“I have a highschool diploma thats [sic] all you should *** need. Classist and elitists. [sic]. AK-47 on your campus for destroying lives.”

In a separate response to the Rice University Admissions Department, Sammons wrote, “Cho shot-up Vtech for this very same horse s—.”

As a result of these postings and out of concern for their safety, some employees of the Rice University admissions department left the office that day and decided to work from home.

On January 10, 2008, Sammons responded to an individual on LiveJournal.com who described the recent death of the poster’s stepfather by stating:

“You’ve caused [A] to betray her old boyfriend (you are a cheater) and her old friend. You will be joining your stepfater [sic] in 2008.”

In addition, Sammons also posted long essays on livejournal.com expressing his frustrations with the university system, his inability to afford college and his aggravation with “traditional students” whose parents pay for everything.

In one post, Sammons stated that he intended to take over a university by force in order to make his point. At times, he stated he bought a cheap, imitation AK-47, which he would use. He also, at times, said he intended to commit suicide by cop while in the process of taking over the campus.

During a search of Sammons’s hard drive, law enforcement officials found a document labeled “People to Kill.” The document contained the names of various people and their addresses.

In August of 2007, Sammons traveled to the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana to confront some of the students he had posted threats to on livejournal.com. He wrote that he waited outside the apartment door, but changed his mind.

The maximum penalty faced by the defendant is 25 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $1,250,000. A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled in this case.

The investigation of the case was conducted by the Bristol Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Virginia State Police, the Big Stone Gap Police Department, the Wise County Sheriff’s’s Office, the Buchanan County Sheriff’s’s Office, the Rice University Police Department and the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana Police Department. Assistant United States Jennifer Bockhorst is prosecuting the case for the United States.

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