Westfield Woman Charged with Hoax Bomb Threat Against Boston Children’s Hospital

BOSTON – A Westfield girl was arrested and charged at the moment in reference to a hoax bomb menace made towards Boston Youngsters’s Hospital.

Catherine Leavy, 37, was charged with one rely of explosive supplies – willfully making a false bomb menace. She was arrested this morning at her house in Westfield and, following an preliminary look this afternoon earlier than U.S. District Courtroom Justice of the Peace Choose Judith G. Dein, was detained pending a detention listening to scheduled for Sept. 16, 2022 at 12:00 p.m.

In line with the charging paperwork, in August 2022, federal brokers started monitoring threats made towards Boston Youngsters’s Hospital and its workers. Among the many wide selection of healthcare providers it supplies, Boston Youngsters’s Hospital is house to the Gender Multispecialty Service (GeMS) program – the primary main healthcare program in the USA to deal with gender-diverse and transgender adolescents.

On Aug. 30, 2022, Boston Youngsters’s Hospital acquired a telephonic bomb menace, during which the caller allegedly stated, “There’s a bomb on the best way to the hospital, you higher evacuate everyone you sickos.” On account of the decision, the hospital and surrounding space was positioned on lockdown standing and a bomb squad was dispatched. An investigation decided no explosive gadgets had been situated at Boston Youngsters’s Hospital. Legislation enforcement obtained subscriber and name element information and site data for the telephone quantity that called-in the bomb menace. Information obtained allegedly indicated the telephone quantity was subscribed in Leavy’s identify and that it pinged off a cell tower close by Leavy’s residence on the time the bomb menace was made.

Throughout a search of Leavy’s residence this morning pursuant to a federal search warrant, the telephone used to make the menace from Leavy’s residence was recovered.

The cost of creating threatening communications in interstate commerce supplies for a sentence of as much as 10 years in jail, three years of supervised launch and a positive of as much as $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court docket decide based mostly upon the U.S. Sentencing Pointers and statutes which govern the willpower of a sentence in a legal case.

United States Lawyer Rachael S. Rollins; Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Particular Agent in Cost of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox made the announcement at the moment. Precious help was offered by the Westfield Police Division. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nadine Pellegrini and Jared C. Dolan, Chief and Deputy Chief of Rollins’ Nationwide Safety Unit, respectively, are prosecuting the case.

The small print contained within the charging paperwork are allegations. The defendant is presumed harmless except and till confirmed responsible past an inexpensive doubt in a court docket of regulation.