Vegas man pleads guilty to threatening Va. Tech alums

Associated Press

Published Tuesday, April 28, 2009 | 8:57 a.m.

Updated Tuesday, April 28, 2009 | 11:45 a.m.

ROANOKE, Va. – A Las Vegas man pleaded guilty Tuesday to sending an e-mail threat to two Virginia Tech alumni on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the school's mass shootings, but said he only wanted to draw attention to violent Internet postings.

Johnmarlo Balasta Napa, 28, admitted to U.S. District Judge James Turk that he sent e-mails to two women who had been college roommate and had complained that gunman Seung-Hui Cho had stalked them. Cho was the student who killed 32 people on campus as well as himself on April 16, 2007.

Napa sent the e-mails from an address called "seunghuichorevenge" that contained a link to a MySpace page that included photos of the two women and of Cho holding paper dolls with the faces of his victims. It also had a YouTube video containing a rap song about the shootings.

"Your honor, I had concerns about violence and school shootings," Napa said when the judge asked why he sent the e-mails.

Napa said he tried to bring his concerns to unspecified authorities, but when he got no response he sent e-mails from a Nevada State College computer to the women "hoping they could do something about it."

In exchange for Napa's plea to one count of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, a second charge against him was dropped.

Napa's attorney, public defender Fay Spence, said Napa was discharged from the Air Force in 2003 after being diagnosed with schizophrenic personality disorder. He also suffers from paranoia, she said, and his mental illness led to his actions. Napa also wrote apology letters to the women, Spence said.

She reserved the right to appeal a motion denied earlier to dismiss the charges. She contended that the information in the e-mails described past events, and did not threaten future action.

David Frey, special agent in the Roanoke FBI office, testified Napa set up the e-mail account and the MySpace page the night of April 15, 2008, then sent the e-mails. One of the women "was terrified by the e-mail," Frey said.

On the eve of the shootings anniversary, "she was obviously in a heightened state," the agent said.

Thomas Gallagher, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' Roanoke office, testified that Napa had bought six guns in two days in December 2007. Two of them were the same make and model as handguns used by Cho.

Napa had a permit to carry concealed weapons, he said, but was denied permission to carry a gun on the Nevada college campus. Gallagher testified that professors told him Napa often wore a bulletproof vest to class.

Turk set sentencing for July 13. Napa could receive a maximum of five years in prison, but Spence said she will ask that the term be limited to the time served since his arrest April 24, 2008. She said she will ask that he receive supervised release and psychiatric treatment.