A Northeastern university lab manager has been charged with staging a hoax “explosion” that a threatening manifesto claimed was inspired by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Jason Duhaime is accused of staging the incident at the Boston university last month, in which he claimed that a package that arrived in the mail exploded and a letter inside it demanded that the lab stop working on virtual reality and the Metaverse.
Federal prosecutors have now charged Mr Duhaime with conveying false information and hoaxes related to an explosive device and making materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statements to an agency of the US government.
The suspect, who was arrested in Texas on Tuesday, is the New Technology Manager and Director of the Immersive Media Lab at Northeastern, and the incident took place in the building it is housed in.
Investigators say that on 13 September, Mr Duhaime asked a student to stay late and help him collect mail from the first floor of the building.
He then allegedly took two cases into a storage closet while the student remained outside in the lab.
“I unlock [the Subject Case] and I open it up. And as soon as I opened it up, all this energy and, like, these things come flying out. And I had a long sleeve shirt, and they flew up underneath, basically, and hit my arm. The case went up and then it came down,” he told investigators, FBI Special Agent Steven Kimball wrote in the complaint.
Mr Duhaime says that is when he found the letter inside one of the cases and called his supervisor and 911.
Authorities have described the note as being threatening and addressed it to the manager of the lab. They say that it demanded that the lab ceased working on artificial intelligence and virtual reality, and specifically mentioned Mr Zuckerberg.
Officials said that the inside and outside of the case were undamaged and that letter was also in “pristine” condition and showed no signs of damage.
And they said that the suspect showed a police officer at the scene his arm which showed only“small, superficial marks or bruises”, and that his clothing was undamaged.
“Evidence discovered during the FBI’s ongoing investigation indicates that DUHAIME himself authored the threatening letter. I believe, based on the ongoing investigation, that the Subject Case contained no ‘sharp’ objects, that no objects were expelled from the case when DUHAIME opened it, and that DUHAIME sustained no injuries as a result of opening the Subject Case,” Agent Kimball wrote in the federal complaint.
Officials say that the suspect lives in Texas but travelled to the university several times a month for work. The university says that he is no longer an employee.
“Northeastern would like to thank the professionals in the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office, and Boston Police Department for bringing this investigation to a close,” the university said in a statement following the arrest.
“Knowing what we know now about this incident, we would like to make it clear that there was never any danger to the Northeastern community.
“As always, the safety of our students, faculty, and staff is our highest priority. The university does not comment on personnel matters, but we can confirm that Mr Duhaime is no longer employed by Northeastern.”
