Alex Ye, a former student of Wootton High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, was found guilty Wednesday of threatening to commit an act of mass violence.
Ye is facing 10 years in prison.
His conviction comes months after he was arrested last April in Rockville after a joint investigation between the Montgomery County Police Department and the FBI into a 129-page manifesto written by Ye that detailed a school shooting.
Proving central to the case, the manifesto detailed the exact strategy on how to commit school shootings. The writings covered attacks on both a high school and an elementary school.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said during a news briefing Wednesday that the first page of the document goes so far as to note which high school classrooms make for the “easiest targets.” On the second page, Ye wrote about the possibility of an attack on an elementary school.
“These are chilling messages,” McCarthy told reporters at the briefing. “There are clearly emotional and psychiatric issues that are in play here.”
Other evidence cited during the two-day bench trial proceedings included email exchanges and direct Instagram messages that mirrored similar sentiments. Those communications were shared with a friend of Ye’s who later alerted authorities.
Ye’s defense team had argued the manifesto was a work of fiction and teenage musings protected under the First Amendment. However, the prosecution outlined the opposite, stating Ye had also indicated a bombing could be carried out to the same effect as a shooting.
McCarthy reiterated during the briefing that prior to police being called to investigate Ye, the manifesto had never included a label stipulating it was a work of fiction. Only after police were alerted did Ye go back into his work and add a fiction label.
“This young man was consumed with school shootings. He cataloged information about other shootings,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said a study would be conducted to determine how best to house Ye in the incarceration system going forward. Ye had previously been hospitalized, according to the state’s attorney.
Ye’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 28 at 9:30 a.m. He is being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds.
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