BY YANNIC RACK
The man who triggered an evacuation of Liberty Island last year after he made a hoax 911 call and threatened to blow up the Statue of Liberty pleaded guilty in federal court this week, according to authorities.
Jason Paul Smith, a 42-year-old from West Virginia, pleaded guilty to one count of conveying false and misleading information, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, said Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Officials said that Smith used a call service for the hearing impaired on his iPad to make the call on April 24 last year, in which he claimed to be an ISIS terrorist named “Abdul Yasin” — a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — who was preparing to “blow up” the landmark.
Cops responding to the hoax swarmed the island and eventually evacuated more than 3,200 people because bomb-sniffing dogs alerted them to possible explosives near the visitor lockers at the base of the statue, according to a complaint — although that suspicion was later proven to be unfounded.
Authorities said the iPad Smith used was also found to have been used to make 911 calls in May of last year, in which a caller identifying himself as an “ISIS Allah bomb maker” threatened to attack Times Square and kill police officers on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Smith is scheduled to be sentenced on September 6.
