Late last week Sammy Sultan, a 50-year-old man from California, was sentenced to 27 months in prison for prank phone calls that he made in 2021.
According to a press release from the U.S. District Attorney’s Office in Boston,
Sultan made eight phone calls to TUPD, six of which included specific threats. During the calls, which collectively lasted about an hour, Sultan claimed to be hiding beneath a bed in a dorm room with a taser and pistol somewhere on campus. Sultan stated that he intended to use the taser if a woman returned to the dorm room and discovered him hiding. During the calls, Sultan played the sounds of a taser activating and a pistol racking – a pistol’s chamber being emptied and reloaded.
The calls triggered a lockdown and room-by-room search of the university by police. Sultan is apparently not new to illicit phone calls. In 2017 he was incarcerated for two years after making obscene and harassing phone calls.
He was charged and pleaded guilty to one count of “making threats in interstate commerce.” His sentence was imposed by a federal judge in Boston.