Boston Herald:
Simpson pleaded innocent today to a charge of disorderly conduct and possession of a hoax device at East Boston District Court. Her bail was set at $750. Prosecutors were seeking $5,000.
Her boyfriend Tim Anderson posted her $750 bail soon after.
“She’s a wonderful person,” said Anderson who refused further comment at the court.
Simpson was arrested at gunpoint at lower Terminal C with the circuit board and battery attached to her chest this morning.
Simpson is lucky she cooperated with state police, a Massport spokesman said.
“If she hadn’t done exactly what they told her to do, she’d be lying in a morgue right now instead of sitting in a cell awaiting arraignment,” said Matthew Brelis.
Simpson is a native of Hawaii who studies electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, according to her profile on her college Web site.
As for the device: “She wanted to stand out on career day,” state police Major Scott Pare said Simpson told police.
(After this her best job might be “do you want fries
with that?—raccoonradio)
Simpson arrived at Terminal C at 8 a.m. today wearing the device with lights and wires strapped around her hooded sweatshirt, according to Massport. The device was connected to a hand-held putty device, said Massport spokeswoman Lisa Langone.
“It turned out to be a hoax device,” Langone said. “It had some lights and wires.”
The putty turned out to be Play-Doh.
Simpson describes herself on her MIT Web site as “an inventor, artist, engineer and student.”
“I love to build things and I love crazy ideas,” she writes.
cont.: Simpson studies computers and how they work and she also works in a student-run machine shop, according to the site.
Before she enrolled at MIT, she traveled the world “saving the planet from evil villains with my delivered-just-in-time gadgets,” according to her site.
The gadget that Simpson allegedly had strapped to her chest this morning drew attention immediately, said Langone.
Simpson walked up to an information desk manned by a Massport official and asked about a male passenger on an incoming Continental flight from Oakland, authorities said. That passenger turned out to be her boyfriend.
When the Massport employee asked Simpson about the device, she walked away and the worker contacted state police. State police, explosive experts and canines swarmed the area, and found Simpson outside on an island on the lower roadway.