Posted on 06/29/2007 6:52:19 AM PDT by jaydubya2
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — A Purdue University graduate student was convicted of threatening to kill President Bush, vice president Dick Cheney and others in postings on the Internet.Vikram Buddhi, 35, an Indian national who was attending advanced engineering classes at Purdue's West Lafayette campus, was found guilty by a federal jury Thursday on 11 counts of making threats that were posted in a chat room in 2005 and 2006.
Buddhi faces up to 35 years in prison when he is sentenced later this year.
Buddhi hijacked online identities of other Purdue students to post messages, the federal indictment said. The messages justified the murder of Bush and Cheney and the rape of their wives. He also made threats against then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and sensitive American infrastructure, U.S. attorneys said during the three-day trial.
Buddhi, who spent a decade studying at Purdue in West Lafayette, never disputed writing online messages such as, "Call for the assassination of GW Bush" and "Rape and Kill Laura Bush."
Rather, the U.S. District Court jury in Hammond had to decide whether Buddhi's comments were true threats or part of a crude online protest of the Iraq War that should be protected by free speech rights.
"I hope this will serve as a deterrent to other people who want to kill human beings, blow up power plants," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson.
Defense attorney John Martin said Buddhi had no intention of actually harming anyone.
"Where does it say Mr. Buddhi is going to kill the president, the vice president?" he argued. "It doesn't. These comments are posted in the context of the debate about the Iraq War,"
Buddhi's messages were posted on Yahoo! Finance messages boards, although prosecutors said Buddhi attempted to conceal his actions by using someone else's digital identity.
He was convicted of making threats against the president and successors to the president, making threats against former presidents and their families, making threats by interstate communications and use of the Internet to threaten destruction by fire.
Buddhi never took the stand in his trial, and the defense offered only one witness, an attorney who had located other threatening messages on the same financial news message board that Buddhi used.
The messages were reported to the Secret Service by three readers, and Purdue staff helped investigators track the postings to Buddhi's computer despite his use of software that disguised his computer address.
A decade? Was he one of those professional students?
TEN YEARS studying at Purdue?
Paraphrasing the words of the immortal Bluto:
“Thirty years of studying, down the drain!”
This guy ought to be back in India answering the geek patrol hotline.
If, they were, in fact, just protected "free political speech", then why the use of ghosting software?...................
Well, if he plays his cards right, he might even get his own MSM TV or radio show /sarc
BTW, does anybody know what happened to that last radio shock jock who called for disgusting violence against Mrs. Bush and Sec. Rice?
busy day for a lazy Friday.
Indian national... hmmm. Quite a few ROP’ers in that stinkhole.
Rot in hell you SOB!!
He'll be on Sean Hannity hawking his book soon........
Good morning, blam. Feels good to be a conservative, doesn’t it? Lots of victories yesteday :)
Well it wasn't long ago that jorge wanted to give amnesty to people like this if they just signed a paper. So let him go. "sac off"
As for studying for ten years at Purdue, he was teaching classes. I can only surmise that he spent several years finishing his Ph.D. (masters completed in 1994) and was a post-doc lecturer.
Last month, I wrote this puke an email telling him how i couldn’t wait for him to go to jail. felt good
There are some things you just don’t say.
Yeah, but his name doesn't "sound" Muslim.
Tell me.
The front page of my local newspaper is loaded with additional victories:
1. Democrat ex-governor Don Siegelman (Algores buddy) goes to prison
2. Democrat Yvonne Kennedy retires (should have been fired, forced to retire) as president of Bishop State
3. Democrat and convicted felon, David Thomas will be fired as Director of Bishop State's adult education department
4. 27 people have been arrested for felonies related to financial thefts, etc at Bishop State College
Yvonne Kennedy
I'll believe that when I see it. After all, he threatened the life of a Republican. Which could mean he might get off with a slap on the wrist, if that.
Now, if he had threatened the life of a Democrat....
He’s a Klingon!!!
What is this dude’s Democratic Underground screen name?
If you are convicted of a felony in a federal court and you haven’t made a deal with a prosecutor to testify against accomplices, your chances of getting a sentence less than 10 years is pretty small.
As an “indian national” can he be deported after he serves his sentence. Our society will not be safe when he is released for good behavior next year.
The heck with wondering about how many years he’ll get. The important question is how much do you think he’ll get for his book deal!
“TEN YEARS studying at Purdue?”
“Google” the guy’s name. It appears he was a graduate student and a teaching assistant in the industrial engineering department at Purdue.
http://themediansib.com/2006/04/20/vikram-buddhi-and-the-first-amendment/
Yea, he was an academia nut...
The old "If you've got nothing to hide..." argument, huh? I use ghosting software because I want to. That's all the justification needed.
I’d be surprised if he got a sentence that would let him out in a year. There is no parole from federal prison anymore, except for people who were sentenced many years ago under the old laws. Those sentenced in recent years can get a little time off for good behavior, but it still works out that they have to serve about 85% or more of their sentences.
Give him another three years for having such a misshapen head ;’}
Gotcha. sometimes I exaggerate.
VERY interesting.
Thank you for the ping.
They should sentence him to 20 years in a cell full of tribbles.
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