A North Hollywood man was charged Tuesday with making a false bomb threat that caused the evacuation of one floor in the downtown criminal courthouse last week.
John Edward Watson, 43, is accused of walking into a third-floor courtroom last Friday, putting a small box down beside him and then standing up and saying a bomb was going to blow up, according to prosecutors.
Watson was immediately detained by a sheriff’s deputy with the assistance of a Los Angeles police officer who was also in the courtroom, according to Deputy Juanita Navarro-Suarez of the Sheriff’s Headquarters Bureau.
More than 30 people were evacuated from the courtroom and the entire floor was cleared as a precaution.
The sheriff’s Arson and Explosives Detail responded, along with a dog from the sheriff’s Transit Services Bureau, and inspected a small box with electronic equipment inside and determined it was not a bomb, Navarro-Suarez said.
Watson — who has not yet been arraigned — is due back in court Oct. 21. He faces one count each of making a false report of a bomb to an agency or business and malicious informing of a false bomb.
If convicted as charged, Watson faces up to seven years in state prison, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
— City News Service