{"id":201054,"date":"2026-05-24T04:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T04:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/201054\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T04:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T04:00:24","slug":"erie-man-accused-in-bomb-threats-to-courthouse-pleads-to-harassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/201054\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie man accused in bomb threats to courthouse pleads to harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Erie man accused of phoning in two bomb threats<\/a> to the Erie County Courthouse in July has ended his criminal case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of harassment.<\/p>\n

Joseph Jackson, 67, entered his guilty plea to the third-degree misdemeanor charge at his May 6 preliminary hearing before Erie 3rd Ward District Judge Alison Scarpitti, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors at the hearing withdrew a number of more serious charges that Jackson faced in the case, including felony and misdemeanor counts of bomb threats and terroristic threats.<\/p>\n

Erie County detectives filed the charges against Jackson July 18, accusing him of calling in bomb threats to county court administration on the evening of July 16 and the morning of July 18. According to information in Jackson’s criminal complaint, Jackson on July 16 left a voicemail stating a bomb was placed in one judge’s courtroom, as well as on the third and fifth floors of the courthouse.<\/p>\n

The courthouse was searched on the morning of July 17 but no bombs were found, authorities reported.<\/p>\n

On the morning of July 18, according to information in the complaint, a similar bomb threat was made from the same number used in the previous threat. The caller also identified himself as Joseph Jackson, and when investigators identified and located Jackson, he at first denied making the calls but eventually admitted making them because he said he was bored, detectives wrote in the complaint’s affidavit.<\/p>\n

Jackson was jailed on $50,000 bond and his preliminary hearing was continued a number of times. In November, according to court records, an Erie County judge issued an order stating Jackson was not competent to stand trial and had Jackson committed to the Torrance State Hospital.<\/p>\n

Charges dropped in other bomb threats case<\/p>\n

In another case involving someone accused of making a bomb threat against the courthouse, charges have been officially dismissed against an Erie man charged with making a number of bomb threats<\/a> and airing bogus weather emergencies over an emergency radio frequency in 2021 and 2022.<\/p>\n

A motion filed in February sought to have charges in three criminal cases that 65-year-old Richard L. Wagner faced dismissed. Assistant Erie County Public Defender Karen Klapsinos said at a hearing <\/a>on the matter March 6 that Wagner was found not mentally competent or restorable and remained at the Warren State Hospital.<\/p>\n

Assistant District Attorney Brendan Sala told Erie County Judge David Ridge at the hearing that he didn’t think there was any way for his office to proceed in prosecuting the cases given the determination on Wagner.<\/p>\n

Ridge said he wanted to hear from any witness or victim in the case before ruling on the motion to dismiss. According to court documents, an order was issued March 24 granting the motion to dismiss the charges.<\/p>\n

Contact Tim Hahn at\u00a0thahn@usatodayco.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie man pleads to misdemeanor in case of courthouse bomb threats<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Erie man accused of phoning in two bomb threats to the Erie County Courthouse in July has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[88941,23106,40170,136,88942,142,13086,138,137,88940,8623,7654],"class_list":["post-201054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-bomb-threats","tag-criminal-case","tag-david-ridge","tag-erie","tag-erie-3rd-ward-district-judge","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-county-courthouse","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-joseph-jackson","tag-preliminary-hearing","tag-terroristic-threats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}