(The Berkshire Eagle posted the following article on its website on February 17.)
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A Boston man was placed on one year’s probation after he admitted yesterday to making a bomb threat at the Amtrak station on Depot Street last year.
John Spence, 53, pleaded guilty in Berkshire Superior Court to making a false bomb threat and possession of marijuana.
Spence, on Sept. 6, 2004, told another man that he had explosives in his luggage while both were waiting on the station platform for a Boston-bound train.
The man alerted authorities and six Pittsfield Police officers and a state police bomb squad responded to the scene.
A visibly intoxicated Spence was arrested at the scene, but no explosives were found in his bags, according to police reports.
Spence, a computer technician for a Boston-area heath service company was in the Berkshires visiting his 17-year-old son in North Adams, according to Eagle files.
Authorities also found a marijuana cigarette in the defendant’s shirt pocket.
As conditions of his probation, Spence is to refrain from drugs and alcohol and undergo counseling, according to a statement from the Berkshire County district attorney’s office.
Spence was also fined $715 under the sentence issued by Judge Daniel A. Ford.