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March 26, 2008 12:18 pm
Man gets four years for college threat
"Given the political climate the way it is as far as all these school shootings, it almost mandated a harsh sentence."
By Paul Leighton
CNHI News Service
BEVERLY, Mass. — The Beverly man who threatened a massacre at Skidmore College in New York has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Joseph Gaudrault, 43, admitted in January that he left a tape-recorded message at his alma mater promising to fire an M-16 rifle "until no one was left standing."
Tuesday, Saratoga County Judge Jerry Scarano sentenced Gaudrault to four years in prison for making a terrorist threat, which is a new charge in New York since the Sept., 11, 2001, attacks.
Gaudrault's threat on May 11 came less than a month after the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 people and just days before Skidmore College commencement.
"Given the political climate the way it is as far as all these school shootings, it almost mandated a harsh sentence," John Hogan III, Gaudrault's lawyer, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "You had to err on the side of caution."
Hogan said Gaudrault might seek help in prison "for some psychological issues." He would not say what those issues were.
Beverly police arrested Gaudrault last May at his apartment in downtown Beverly. He had just been released from Middleton Jail after serving a sentence for an unrelated conviction.
According to Salem District Court records, police found information about student loans totaling just over $2,000, as well as scribbled notes about an Air France flight and the words "(expletive) Skidmore."
In addition to his four-year prison sentence, Gaudrault will be under supervision for three years after his release.
Paul Leighton writes for The Salem (Mass.) News.
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