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NBA security guard who made bomb threats sentenced to federal prison

A security guard who admitted making several bogus bomb threats to a Secaucus NBA Properties office was sentenced to six months in federal prison.

Photo Credit: National Basketball Ass’n

NBA Studios, Secaucus (COURTESY: National Basketball Ass’n)

José Quesada, 19, of Elizabeth, also must spend six months in home detention with electronic monitoring, under the sentence imposed Wednesday.

Quesada was hired to provide office security for the offices of NBA Properties, an affiliate of the National Basketball Association.

He made the calls from his cell phone three days in a row in July 2010.

“I put a bomb outside. . . Gonna kill all the NBA,” he said during one call. “I put a bomb outside in the bush. No way out. Gonna blow up at 9:00 o’clock in the morning. Good luck. . . If you come out, it will blow up . . . ”

In another, he said: “Leave the building. It’s gonna blow up. Leave the building. Nowhere to go. It’s gonna go up. It’s gonna go ‘Boom!’ “

Quesada left a threatening voice mail on a Monday morning, five more voice mails in a 16-minute period on Tuesday night and a seventh voice mail on Wednesday afternoon, an FBI complaint says.

The building was evacuated after the calls came in, as police and K-9 units searched the area for hours in vain.

Additional security measures were also put in place, including four armed guards on round-the-clock duty (See: Feds: Security guard made NBA bomb threats).

In addition to the prison term and home detention, U.S. District Judge José L. Linares sentenced the defendant to serve three years of supervised release.

U.S. Attorney Paul S. Fishman credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B. Ward, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and the Secaucus Police Department with the investigation. He also praised the Hudson County and Secaucus Offices of Emergency Management for their response to the threat.

“A bomb threat is not a prank. It is a federal crime,” Fishman said, following Quesada’s arrest. “There is nothing amusing about scaring people and wasting the valuable time and resources of those responsible for keeping us safe.”

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