UMass Boston Student Charged Over Two Bomb Threats
BOSTON (AP) — A University of Massachusetts Boston student has pleaded not guilty to making two recent bomb threats to the same campus building.
Twenty-nine-year-old senior Dean Beckford of Somerville was arraigned Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court and ordered held on $20,000 cash bail.
Prosecutors allege Beckford called in bomb threats against Wheatley Hall from payphones on April 17 and again on Tuesday. The building was evacuated but no bombs were found.
Prosecutors said surveillance footage near the payphones, one at an MBTA station, led investigators to Beckford. He was detained Tuesday by campus police. Prosecutors said Beckford allegedly told police he was not doing well in school but did not discuss the bomb threats.
Beckford is due back in court May 19. Telephone messages were left Wednesday for his attorney.
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