The superintendent of a Massachusetts college district was arrested Wednesday for making false statements in relation to threatening messages she allegedly despatched to a police chief candidate, the FBI introduced.
A Chicopee police chief candidate started receiving threats in November 2021 meant to pressure them to rescind their software for the place, in keeping with a Justice Division press launch.
Telephone and web data allegedly confirmed that Lynn M. Clark, the Chicopee Superintendent of Faculties, was behind the messages. Clark had allegedly refuted sending the messages on a number of events however then later acknowledged that she did ship them, in keeping with the Justice Division.
It was not instantly clear why Clark, 51, allegedly focused a police chief candidate with threats and later denied being behind the messages. The Justice Division stated that she allegedly despatched about 99 messages in complete by way of faux numbers that she bought in a cell app.
The grievance in opposition to Clark says that the police chief candidate acquired a number of textual content messages from unknown cellphone numbers in November after submitting their software for the place. The messages threatened to launch info that might hurt the candidate's fame. The candidate ended up withdrawing their software in consequence.
This triggered a delay within the choice course of for the town's new chief of police, the discharge stated.
Regulation enforcement acquired a report on December 3, 2021, that the candidate had been receiving threatening messages. The cellphone numbers had been linked again to Clark who "allegedly denied sending the messages on quite a few events to investigators and forged suspicion onto different people," in keeping with the discharge.
"Particularly, over the course of the investigation, Clark allegedly urged that the messages may have been despatched by different Metropolis staff, the sufferer's colleagues and a member of Clark's circle of relatives. Clark later admitted that she certainly despatched the messages," the discharge stated.
Clark is going through one depend of creating false statements and can make her first federal court docket look later Wednesday in Springfield, Massachusetts. If convicted, she may resist 5 years in federal jail, as much as one yr of supervised launch, and a nice of as a lot as $10,000.
The discharge didn't determine the candidate allegedly focused within the messages.
A brand new police chief for Chicopee nonetheless has not been chosen. The 2 remaining candidates had been Chicopee police captains Patrick Main and Jeffrey Gawron, MassLive.com reported Sunday.
Two different candidates, Donald Unusual and Patrick Henry, had been additionally beforehand into account for the function. Unusual withdrew early within the course of, however the police chief search was quickly halted in January after Henry dropped out, MassLive.com reported.
Newsweek reached out to Chicopee Public Faculties for remark however didn't hear again by publication time.
Replace 4/6/22, 1:15 p.m. ET: This story was up to date with further info and background.
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