Bond Revoked for Illinois Student Charged in Campus-Rampage Plot
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A former Southern Illinois University student charged with threatening a Virginia Tech-like shooting rampage was ordered back to jail Monday after a judge found the man's attempt to buy a handgun online was "bad judgment."
Associate Judge Richard Tognarelli decided that 23-year-old Olutosin Oduwole violated conditions of his release by trying to buy a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun last month.
"I am concerned about his bad judgment," Tognarelli said in yanking Oduwole's $110,000 bond. "Why he would even attempt to purchase that weapon and violate that bail is beyond comprehension."
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Oduwole was an SIU student in July 2007 when campus police found a note in his car while impounding the disabled vehicle. Investigators said the note demanded $50,000 or vowed "a murderous rampage" similar to the Virginia Tech shooting would happen again.
Authorities say they found ammunition in his car and a loaded handgun in Oduwole's on-campus apartment.
His arrest came four months after a Virginia Tech student killed 32 people and injured 25 on campus before killing himself. Oduwole has pleaded not guilty to making a terrorist threat, as well as charges of unlawful weapons possession, theft and computer fraud.
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Oduwole later told reporters the supposed threat case was a "misunderstanding" blown out of proportion by media outlets and prosecutors. "I believe in God, and I believe God knows I have no intentions of ill will," he insisted then.
The defense says the supposedly threatening note was innocent lyrics scribbled by the aspiring rapper.
But prosecutors pressed that Oduwole stumbled last month when, after posting the winning $340 bid for the handgun in an online auction, he marked on a federal firearms form that he did not face any felony counts punishable by more than a year in prison.
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The threat-related count is a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
It was not immediately clear Monday if a trial date had been set.