A man faces a maximum of up to a decade in prison after calling in a bomb threat when he couldn’t pay for airport parking, prosecutors said.
A 35-year-old man was indicted on November 20 and charged with one count of willfully making a threat.
The incident came to light after the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Louisiana issued a press release on Tuesday.
The FBI’s violent crime task force was called by the local sheriff’s office after New Orleans Airport received a “threatening phone call” on November 7, per an FBI agent’s affidavit.
It added that the man from Alexandria, Louisiana — around 170 miles from New Orleans — demanded the operator “page Hassan” and said: “If you do not page him, we have the bomb.”
Less than an hour later, the airport received another call from the same number, in which the man was “attempting to disguise his voice,” per the affidavit.
He is said to have then threatened to cut the operator’s throat in an expletive-laden message, adding, “I want him to bring the bomb to level three.”
Deputies from the sheriff’s office then pinged the phone number and found the phone was located near the airport’s north terminal, the affidavit said.
When the number was then linked to the man, the deputies said they recognized his name from an incident earlier that evening.
Two hours before the first phone call, the suspect tried to exit the short-term parking garage but “was unable to render payment,” per the affidavit.
He is said to have refused to move his vehicle from the exit lane after “multiple requests” from parking staff and airport police officers. He was then allowed to move his car to a surface parking lot until he could get the money to leave, the affidavit added.
After the sheriff’s deputies connected the man to the bomb threat, they found him still parked in the surface lot, where they arrested him.
The affidavit says that the deputies also called the phone number that the threats came from, and saw his phone ringing.
He was later released on a $5,000 unsecured appearance bond ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
The conditions of his release said he must participate in mental health treatment — and allowed him to retrieve his car from the airport parking lot.
If convicted, the suspect faces up to 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
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