Two men sentenced for making bomb threat

Two Jackson men who were in substance abuse treatment and cooked up a scheme to use a bomb threat to profit from a lawsuit against police instead were given prison terms.

Duane E. Haffner, 23, of 245 S. Union Ave. in Jackson, received a five-year sentence, and Leotis Sylvester Allen, 22, of 407 East Lane, Apt. 202, in Jackson received a four-year prison term on charges of making a terroristic threat, Cape Girardeau County prosecutor Morley Swingle said Tuesday. The sentences were handed down Monday by Circuit Judge Ben Lewis.

On Feb. 21, Jackson police received a call with a tip that a man in a hooded sweat shirt and brown boots would bring a bomb hidden in his shoe into the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson the next day.

"The plan was foiled when detectives Scotte Eakers and Rodney Barnes of the Jackson Police Department recognized the voice of Haffner on the recorded call and phone records subsequently confirmed that the call had been made from the Gibson Recovery Center, where Haffner and Allen were staying," Swingle said in a prepared statement.

Allen paid Haffner $25 to make the call and gave him a prepaid calling card to use, Swingle said. Allen hoped to profit by being tackled by police and suing for injuries he hoped would ensue from the struggle.

The law against making terroristic threats, defined as a statement made for the purpose of frightening 10 or more people, was passed by the Missouri Legislature in 2000. "My feeling is that 9-11 took all the humor out of bomb threats," Swingle said in an interview.

The case was investigated by the Jackson police, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Southeast Missouri Bomb Squad. Prosecutors were undecided whether to prosecute the pair in federal or state courts, Swingle said, but the state courts were eventually used because the pair have criminal pasts. "Everybody agreed that there was a sufficient pound of flesh in having them go to prison," Swingle said.

As part of the sentencing, Lewis will look at the pair's behavior in prison after 120 days and decide whether to release them on probation.

"This was more a crime of stupidity rather than terrorism," Swingle said. "Nevertheless, Judge Lewis has shown that if you make a bomb threat involving the courthouse, you are very likely to go to prison."

The case was the first in Cape Girardeau County under the terroristic threatening law, Swingle said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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