The FBI made a second arrest last week in connection with
December’s bomb threat against the
determining that the original suspect was not involved in the hoax.
On Jan. 4, members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force
arrested 54-year-old Richard Sills Jr., a temporary Leichtag employee.
Officials also dismissed all charges against 50-year-old former lab technician
Timothy Bryon Kalka, who was arrested for the crime on Dec. 8.
Sills is charged with conveying false or misleading
information and engaging in hoax activities pertaining to explosives. He was
scheduled to appear before a judge on Jan. 8 but did not show, said Debra
Hartman, media liaison for the San Diego U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Hartman said that Sills is currently a patient at Alvarado
Hospital in East County, but could not disclose any other details. He is now
expected to appear before the court on Jan. 14, she said.
Associate Vice Chancellor of University Communications
Stacie A. Spector said that Sills was a temporary worker whose most recent
employment began in May and was slated to end in the spring. He also worked at
UCSD for two months in 2006.
The hoax device was discovered in Leichtag on Dec. 5 at 10:26
a.m., and employees reportedly received a call shortly afterward threatening
its detonation. The entire School of Medicine complex was evacuated for seven
hours while the Metro Arson Strike Team secured the device and rendered it
safe.
Earlier that day, university officials received a letter
claiming to be from animal-rights activist group the Animal Liberation Front,
which demanded the release of all research animals in campus laboratories. If
the university did not comply, the letter said, multiple explosive devices
would be detonated.
Jerry Vlasak of the Animal Liberation Press Office, an
organization that fields anonymous messages from ALF members and publicly
advocates for animal-rights reform, said he did not know if the incident was
committed by an ALF affiliate.
“We know there are animals being tortured at UC San Diego,
and we know there are people willing to risk their lives and their freedom to
stop it,” Vlasak said. “Whether this was perpetrated by ALF, we don’t really
have any firsthand knowledge.”
Vlasak said the threat initially appeared to be the work of
ALF members, but the recent emergence of “disgruntled employees” made him
uncertain of its authenticity.
He also said that ALPO does not know the identities of ALF
members, but that Sills is not a known animal-rights activist.
Kalka was arrested based on tips from individuals who
listened to recorded television and radio broadcasts of the threat, along with
a concurrent JTTF investigation, according to an FBI press release. He had been
terminated from his position on Nov. 30 after working at UCSD for eight years.
However, further investigation exonerated Kalka and
implicated Sills, according to the FBI.
No evidence linking Sills to ALF has been released to the
media.
