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Bomb threat suspect to remain jailed
YOUNGSTOWN
A U.S. magistrate has ordered a city woman jailed without bond after the FBI accused her of making threatening communications and communicating false information in connection with a bomb threat against Vallourec Star.
On Monday, U.S. Magistrate George J. Limbert ordered Rakieda D. Cheatham, 27, of Broadview Avenue detained and bound over to a federal grand jury pending further action in the case.
The magistrate ordered detention because he said Cheatham posed a risk to herself and to the community and might flee.
Each of the two charges in the FBI’s criminal complaint against Cheatham carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine upon conviction.
Cheatham, who sat quietly in court wearing an orange Mahoning County jail uniform, made threatening phone calls and emails to three company employees after her temporary employment at the steelmaking company ended Feb. 27, according to an FBI affidavit.
Some of the emails sent March 27 contained references to bomb threats, which resulted in a three-hour evacuation of all 653 employees from the Martin Luther King Boulevard plant on that day until the city police bomb squad deemed the area safe.
“The unnecessary evacuation caused considerable employee panic and significant financial loss to the company,” FBI agent Anthony J. Sano reported in the affidavit supporting the accusations.
“The evidence is pretty strong,” Magistrate Limbert said of the FBI’s tracing of the phone calls and emails to Cheatham.
“She is not a threat to anyone,” said Cheatham’s lawyer, Robert Duffrin, who said his client suffers from mental illness and urged the magistrate to release her to her mother.
Under questioning by Duffrin, FBI Agent Thomas Donnelly acknowledged that agents who searched Cheatham’s home and car and arrested her Friday found no guns, bombs or bomb-making materials.
Vallourec hired Cheatham last June 23 in its quality- assurance department to assist the company in preparing for a forthcoming audit, and her employment ended as the project for which she was hired was coming to a close, the affidavit said.