Olutosin Oduwole

A former Southern Illinois University student has been sentenced to five years in prison for writing what prosecutors say was a note demanding money and threatening a Virginia Tech-like killing spree.

Twenty-six-year-old Olutosin Oduwole was sentenced Wednesday in Madison County.

A jury convicted him in October of attempting to make a terrorist threat and unauthorized possession or storage of a weapon.

Olutosin Oduwole

Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons said the arrest and prosecution prevented an attack that could have resulted in numerous deaths.

In October, a jury found Oduwole guilty of attempting to communicate a terror threat, a felony, and of illegally possessing a handgun on the SIUE campus, a misdemeanor. Circuit Judge Richard Tognarelli sentenced him to five years in prison for the felony and a concurrent 364 days and $1,000 fine for the misdemeanor. The felony penalty range runs from probation to 15 years in prison. Oduwole will be required to serve at least half the five years, minus a few months for time already spent in jail.

SIUE police found a scrap of paper in Oduwole’s locked car, parked along a campus roadway in July 2007, with writing that seemed to threaten “a murderous rampage” at a large university unless money was placed in an unspecified PayPal account online.

He was already under police scrutiny after a weapons dealer reported concerns at how anxious Oduwole was for delivery of four firearms he had ordered online.

Prosecutor James Buckley argued to the jury that what Oduwole wrote was like shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. The note was found only about two months after a student killed 32 people and wounded 25 others in a shooting spree at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

Following the scheduled sentencing, Oduwole pleaded guilty to felony counts of theft and computer fraud in an apparently unrelated 2007 matter. He was accused of selling a firearm online and collecting a $1,000 deposit without ever owning or delivering the gun. Tognarelli sentenced him to 30 months probation, concurrent with the other sentences.

Gibbons issued a statement later credited “the good instincts of the firearms dealer and the quick actions of local and federal law enforcement prevented an attack and saved countless lives.”