A 32-year-old Web designer was charged Thursday with making a hoax threat to San Diego State University claiming the campus would be targeted for violence similar to Virginia Tech's bloodshed.
Cristobal Fernando Gonzalez faces one felony count of making a threatening communication via the Internet.
He was ordered held in federal custody in lieu of $30,000 bond during a brief hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara L. Major.
According to court documents, Gonzalez told FBI investigators he posted the hoax message anonymously to his own Web page and then alerted a local television station in an attempt to generate publicity for the site.
School officials received notice at 10:55 p.m. Tuesday that a message on the Internet threatened to kill 50 SDSU students on Thursday morning, according to court documents.
FBI investigators traced Gonzalez via his posting to a Web design company in Bonita, a city sandwiched between San Diego and the U.S.-Mexico border. He was interviewed around 8:10 a.m. Wednesday and arrested at his San Diego home later that evening.
Gonzalez' parents said outside the federal courthouse in downtown San Diego that their son was very unhappy and remorseful about what he had done.
"I hope it doesn't ruin his future," said his mother, Diana Gomez.
Students, faculty and staff were not alerted to the threat until midmorning Wednesday, said SDSU spokeswoman Gina Speciale. School administrators sent a university-wide e-mail and alerted individual departments to the hoax.
"We are telling students and faculty to be more aware of their surroundings," Speciale said.
San Diego State was the site of the 1996 fatal shootings by Frederick Martin Davidson, a 36-year-old graduate engineering student who was defending his thesis before a faculty committee when he pulled out a handgun and killed three professors.
Gonzalez faces up to five years in custody and $250,000 in fines if he is found guilty.
Associated Press Writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
