News

Harvard Sophomore Faces Federal Charges for Bomb Threat

John Zaremba, O'Ryan Johnson

12/18/2013

Dec. 18--The Harvard sophomore who feds say admitted to emailing the bomb threats that threw the campus into exam-day disarray is "a smart guy," his roommate told the Herald -- even though investigators say his digital footsteps led them directly to his dorm room within hours of the hoax.

Eldo Kim, 20, was face-to-face with investigators inside his Quincy House quad about 9 p.m. Monday, his roommate said -- slightly more than 12 hours after feds allege Kim emailed police, administrators and the student newspaper warning of "shrapnel bombs" in four buildings.

Federal investigators said in an affidavit that Kim was set to take a test at 9 a.m. Monday in Emerson Hall, one of the buildings referenced in the email, and that Kim told an FBI agent and a Harvard campus cop that "he was motivated by a desire to avoid a final exam."

"Kim stated that he was in Emerson Hall at 9:00 a.m. when the fire alarm sounded and the building was evacuated," the affidavit says. "According to Kim, upon hearing the alarm, he knew that his plan had worked."

"I don't know what to think," roommate Daniel Leichus said last night, telling the Herald authorities questioned him about 9 p.m. Monday, and that he last saw a silent Kim gathering clothes about an hour and a half later before leaving with investigators. "He's a smart guy."

Kim was booked yesterday at the Cambridge police station and held there overnight, police Deputy Superintendent Jack Albert said. Kim is set to appear in federal court today, prosecutors said.

The threatening emails came via Guerilla Mail, which creates anonymous email addresses, and another service called TOR, which disguises a computer user's IP address, the FBI affidavit says. But Kim accessed TOR using the school's wireless network, the affidavit says.

The email, under the subject line "bombs placed around campus," said shrapnel bombs were placed in the Science Center, Sever Hall, Emerson Hall and the freshman dorm Thayer Hall.

"2/4. guess correctly," the email said, according to the feds' affidavit. "be quick for they will go off soon."

Kim told investigators "he chose the word 'shrapnel' because it sounded more dangerous and wrote, '2/4. guess correctly,' so that it would take more time for the Harvard Police Department to clear the area," the affidavit says.

Harvard students said they were hardly impressed with Kim's unsophisticated plot.

"I'm sure there's some genius students at Harvard, some future Mark Zuckerbergs who are capable of hacking the network," said sophomore John Morton, "but the idea that you can send something untraceable over the Harvard network is a little farcical."

Defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Brad Bailey -- whose past clients include a pair of high schoolers charged in state court with phoning in a bomb threat to the Nantucket Steamship Authority -- said feds "are trying to send a message" in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

"There's no question they're trying to send a message, particularly in this time of heightened security and awareness, that this type of activity is unacceptable and will be severely punished."