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Goshen — A 15-year-old boy silently cried today as
Orange County Family
Court Judge Carol Klein told him he's going behind razor wire for at least
18
months. She also said he's lucky that he's not an adult.
"If you were an adult, you would be going away for a very long time,"
Klein told
the boy. She sentenced him to 18 months for making threats at Cornwall
High School and taping his pet cat to a wall with packing tape.
The boy made the threats to a school security guard last month, one day
after
a student murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech. He told her, "Wait until
tomorrow. It will be Columbine." He said he had "more stuff than the
police in
this town," and he said the victims of the shootings at Columbine High
School and Virginia Tech deserved to die.
He pleaded guilty last week, admitting he said all of those things.
Today, the boy received the maximum sentence allowed for a juvenile
delinquent. That was by agreement between his law guardian and the
Orange County Attorney's Office, which prosecutes most crimes committed
by children under 16.
If the boy doesn't show that he's willing to face his problems, or if he
breaks
rules while he's being held in a detention center in Albany, he could
remain
in the state's custody until he's 18.
As part of his sentence, the boy won't be allowed to have contact with
animals while he's in custody. The cat, named Azreal, is recovering at the
Blooming Grove Humane Society's shelter and will never return to the boy's
home.
Police found pictures of the suffering cat in the boy's home, after he
made the
threats. They also seized a shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle, and photos of
the
boy wearing a black bandanna over his face and posing with one of the
weapons.
At the time, he was already on probation. He made a similar threat in
Washingtonville last year, according to court testimony.
"You are a danger to yourself," Klein told him, "and a danger to this
community."
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