Newtown ‘truther’ arrested for making ‘disturbing’ phone calls to Sandy Hook Elementary School
Timothy Rogalski left four messages on the school’s answering machine, police say
A Connecticut man was arrested on Tuesday after allegedly placing harassing phone calls to Sandy Hook Elementary School, accusing staffers of staging the 2012 school shootings.
Timothy Rogalski, of Wallingford, Conn., left “four disturbing telephone messages” on the school’s answering machine, according to police in Monroe — the town that has served as Sandy Hook Elementary’s temporary home since the massacre in Newtown two years ago. Rogalski also said the Boston Marathon bombings were a hoax.
The 30-year-old, who allegedly left similar messages at two other Newtown schools, called back a fifth time and spoke to an administrative assistant, police said.
Police traced the calls to Rogalski’s home, where he was arrested.
He was charged with five counts of second-degree harassment and one count of disorderly conduct, police said.
“I don’t think I said anything that horrible,” Rogalski said at an initial court appearance Wednesday, according to NBC Connecticut. He was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation and not to contact Sandy Hook staffers.
Rogalski, who is being held on $50,000 bond, is due back in court on April 22.
It’s not the first time Newtown area residents have been subjected to harassment since Dec. 14, 2012, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza forced his way into the school and opened fire, killing 20 children and 6 staffers before committing suicide as police arrived.
Two days after the shootings, a Venezuelan man made more than 90 threatening phone calls to Newtown residents.
“This is Adam Lanza,” the man, Wilfrido Cardenas Hoffman, said in one of the calls, according to the FBI. “I’m gonna [expletive] kill you. You’re dead. You’re dead. You hear me? You’re dead.”
Hoffman was arrested in 2014 by federal agents at the Miami International Airport while traveling from Venezuela to Mexico. He pleaded guilty in December and was later sentenced to a year in prison.
“Threatening Newtown residents just two days after their tragedy was inexplicably cruel,” U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly said in a statement announcing the sentencing. “This defendant’s senseless crimes re-victimized a brave yet fragile community that was already suffering a profound loss.”
It’s also not the first time Newtown residents have been subjected to harassment by so-called Sandy Hook “truthers,” who say the shootings were fabricated by the U.S. government to gain public support for gun-law reform.
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