Bogus bomb caller gets 5-year sentence

By PRESTON GILL
pgill@daily-review.com
FRANKLIN — A Franklin man who police said had a history of making bogus 911 calls was given a five-year prison term after he pleaded guilty to calling in a hoax bomb threat to Franklin Junior High School a year ago.
Jonah Madison, 19, was sentenced by 16th Judicial District Judge Edward Leonard Jr. Sept. 9 for communicating false information of a planned bombing on school property.
Leonard ordered an evaluation of Madison to be done within 30 days of his commitment to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Madison asked the judge what was meant by evaluated. “A psych doctor?” he asked.
“Yes sir, that’s what it is,” Leonard said.
Sanity hearing reports were filed into the record on May 23 finding Madison capable of assisting counsel in his defense and allowed the trial to proceed forward. Sanity Commission members Dr. Frank Metz and Dr. James Blackburn filed the reports.
Franklin police arrested Madison on Sept. 25, 2012, on a warrant for making a false 911 call on Sept. 22 regarding a double shooting. Police said Madison eventually admitted to making the 911 call and to calling in a bomb threat to the school on the morning of his arrest.
Molly Stadalis, junior high principal, told police she spoke with a male caller who warned her there was a bomb on the campus that would go off in five minutes, a police report said.
School staff said Madison came to the school requesting his transcripts shortly before the call about the bomb and the voice on the line sounded like Madison’s, the report said.
The police report said Madison asked how police knew it was him since he dialed *67 to block his number before calling the school.
After Madison was arrested and charged in both incidents, he was held at the St. Mary Parish Jail in Franklin. Police accused him of making multiple calls to the Franklin police department in November, with vulgar messages and threatening officers, including Police Chief Sabria McGuire. The police report said Franklin police told parish jail officials and the calls were stopped.
The statute calls for up to a 20 year sentence upon conviction for the crime to which Madison pleaded guilty. He had faced two counts of terrorizing, each carrying a possible 15-year prison sentence. Those counts were dismissed in a plea agreement.