BENTON, Ill. (AP) — A 22-year-old Chicago man has pleaded guilty to four federal charges connected to making bomb threats in a self-declared “war” on Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
Derrick Dawon Burns admitted at a Thursday hearing in Benton to sending four threatening letters to students, employees and campus police in 2012 and 2013. The FBI was also an intended recipient.
Three of the letters were entitled “The War on SIU.” One was placed in a campus mail box and the others found in mail sorting machines.
The former SIU student remains in custody without bond as he awaits a Dec. 8 sentencing. He faces up to 10 years in prison for each charge of willfully making a bomb threat.
Burns was found competent to stand trial after a psychiatric exam.