Monday, December 22, 2025
37.0°F

Suspect accused of football game threat enters guilty plea

Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years, 5 months AGO
by Associated Press
| July 4, 2020 12:03 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A man who used Facebook to threaten a shooting at Ohio State University and vowed to hurt players on the football team and then-head coach Urban Meyer pleaded guilty Wednesday, authorities said.

An indictment unsealed late last year in federal court in Columbus accused Daniel Rippy of making the “electronic communication” threat from California during the game between Ohio State and the University of Michigan in 2018. The game was played in Columbus that year, and Ohio State won 62-39.

Rippy threatened a shooting at the school, saying in a Facebook message to the university, "I'm seriously going to hurt the students and all of the players from the football team,” according to a statement of facts filed Wednesday with the plea agreement.

In separate messages, Rippy also threatened “to injure or kill specific players, their family members and the head coach,” the document said.

Rippy previously entered a not guilty plea before Judge Algenon Marbley, who ordered him to remain in detention.

“Graphic threats of violence against anyone, but especially threats during high-profile events, are taken seriously and will be prosecuted,” said David DeVillers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.

Rippy faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine at sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

Rippy “understands and accepts" the terms of the plea agreement, his federal public defender, Soumyajit Dutta, said in a signed statement as part of Wednesday's plea agreement.

Rippy was arrested Dec. 28 in Livermore, California, released on bond, but then failed to report to the court’s Pretrial Services division as required. Rippy also didn’t report to a halfway house as required, court documents said.

He was rearrested in January and ordered sent to Ohio.

ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

August 18, 2021 12:03 a.m.

Hong Kong police arrest 4 from university student union

HONG KONG (AP) — Four members of a Hong Kong university student union were arrested Wednesday for allegedly advocating terrorism by paying tribute to a person who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself, police said.

July 25, 2021 12:09 a.m.

For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.

July 24, 2021 12:09 a.m.

For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.