By Tom Interval
Staff Writer
Perry Iman, a former La Roche security guard, pled guilty to several charges Jan. 23 in connection with five bomb threats made to the school over a four-month period last winter.
Iman, 39, of Butler, faced charges of risking a catastrophe, causing false alarms to agencies of public safety, filing false police reports and harassment by communication, according to McCandless police.
Kathy Merrifield, safety and security director at La Roche, who was present at Iman’s formal trial on Jan. 23, said Iman pled guilty to all charges except one relating to terroristic threats.
Last winter, Iman phoned in threats to McCandless and Ross police and to the La Roche switchboard between Dec. 14, 1994, and March 29, 1995.
No bombs were found and no one was injured; however, each call led to the evacuation of buildings.
Iman, who resigned from La Roche in Jan. 1995, surrendered to McCandless police last April; his preliminary hearing was held the same month.
Iman, a former Evans City police officer, wanted a jury trial but decided at the last moment to plead guilty in exchange for entering the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program.
Under ARD, first-time offenders are required to meet periodically with a parole officer and a counselor.
“If he keeps his nose clean in that period of time, his record will be expunged,” said Merrifield. She also said Iman was required to give up his Act 120 certification to be a police officer.
Until he made the threats, Iman had no criminal history.
“He had a squeaky-clean background,” said Merrifield.
Though Merrifield wouldn’t guess what Iman’s motive was, she said, “Everyone here at the college feels that Perry needs help.”
“[Iman] said he had a problem with the college,” said David R. DiSanti, detective for the Town of McCandless, the officer who arrested Iman. But DiSanti said he didn’t know exactly what the “problem” was.
Although there is no definitive reason why people make bomb threats, theories for such behavior exist.
Dr. MariJean Ferguson, associate professor of sociology at La Roche, said that some people who decide to become police officers (like Iman), firefighters, emergency medical technicians and the like, are thrill seekers.
“They have images of themselves being heroic,” she said. “They spend a lot of time waiting for something to happen.”
Perhaps Iman, while working as a security guard at La Roche, was “waiting for something to happen” on campus.
“[People like Iman] create a catastrophic event in order to create the very conditions within which they can act heroically,” said Ferguson.
“He’s not a terrorist,” she said. “It’s very unlikely that he was ever going to set off a bomb.”
