On Thursday, a lady from Massachusetts entered a guilty plea to calling in a hoax bomb threat to Boston Children’s Hospital, which was facing a wave of hostility due to the hospital’s decision to perform surgical procedures on transgender children.
According to the prosecutors, Catherine Leavy, who was detained at her house in Westfield the previous year, pled guilty in federal court in Boston to charges included fabricating a false bomb threat. Leavy was apprehended at her home. Her sentencing is set to take place in the month of March.
She pled guilty to the most serious accusation possible, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years in jail if convicted.
Her attorney, Forest O’Neill-Greenberg, did not respond right away to an email asking for a response that was sent to him.
The hospital, which had inaugurated the nation’s first paediatric and adolescent transgender health programme, was reportedly subjected to a barrage of threats and harassment in the month of August 2022, when the threat was reported to the authorities.
After discovering instructional YouTube films made by the hospital regarding the surgical options available to transgender patients, far-right social media accounts, news sites, and bloggers began to focus their attention on the institution in the previous year.
According to the records that were filed in court, the caller stated that there was a bomb on its way to the hospital and that everyone should be evacuated immediately. As a result of the threat, the hospital went into lockdown mode. There were no explosives discovered.
According to the records that were filed in the case, Leavy originally denied making the threat while being interviewed by FBI agents. Prosecutors claim that she admitted making the threat after agents informed her that phone records showed her number was the one that made the threat. However, she stated that she had no intention of really bombing the hospital. According to the documents that were filed in the case, during the interview she “on multiple occasions” “expressed disapproval” of the facility.
There are a number of facilities, including Boston Children’s Hospital, that provide medical care for transgender children and adolescents who have become the target of threats. Last year, medical groups stated that children’s hospitals across the country had significantly enhanced their level of security and were required to collaborate with law enforcement. They also stated that certain clinicians needed to obtain continual security.
