An ex-Los Angeles deputy mayor of public safety learned his fate at his sentencing for calling in a fake bomb threat to City Hall after growing “desperate” to get out of a virtual meeting.
Brian Williams, a former senior staffer of LA mayor Karen Bass, was sentenced to one year of probation, 50 hours of community service, and a $5,000 fine in the US District Court on Monday.
Williams, 61, admitted to falsely informing cops in October 2024 that he had received a call on his city-issued cellphone from an unknown man who said he had placed a bomb in City Hall, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The longtime law enforcement oversight official used a Google Voice app on his personal cellphone to call the bomb threat to his city-issued cellphone during a video call, prosecutors said in a previous statement.
He then left the virtual meeting and called the Chief of Staff of the Los Angeles Police Department, where he claimed he received a phone call from a man who threatened to bomb the Los Angeles City Hall.
Roughly 10 minutes later, Williams sent a text message to the Los Angeles Mayor and several high-ranking city officials in the Mayor’s office, writing, “Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning.”
“The male caller stated that ‘he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.”
“I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat,” he texted.
However, Williams never received a call and “had made the bomb threat himself,” prosecutors said, noting he never actually intended to carry out the hoax.
After officers responded to the scene, they determined the threat was not credible. Investigators later learned an incoming call record from a blocked number was the call Williams had placed to himself.
He also texted Mayor Bass and other high-ranking officials, “At this time, there is no need for us to evacuate the building. I’m meeting with the threat management officers within the next 10 minutes. In light of the Jewish holidays, we are taking this thread, a little more seriously. I will keep you posted.”
Williams agreed in May to plead guilty to a single count of threats regarding fire and explosives. He faced a maximum sentence of a decade behind bars.
His lawyer Dmitry Gorin said the public official was suffering from “undiagnosed mental health challenges,” for which he said his client has undergone treatment, the LA Times reported.
He reported the sham threat, “after he became overwhelmed with stress and anxiety and desperate to get out of an ongoing meeting,” prosecutors wrote in a presentencing memo.
The former government official has no prior criminal convictions or arrests.
With Post wires.
