Beverly man gets four years for college threat

By Paul Leighton
Staff writer

March 26, 2008 06:00 am

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BEVERLY — The Beverly man who threatened a massacre at Skidmore College in New York was sentenced to four years in prison yesterday.

Joseph Gaudrault, 43, of 50 Broadway admitted in January that he left a tape-recorded message at his alma mater promising to fire an M-16 rifle "until no one was left standing."

Yesterday, Saratoga County Judge Jerry Scarano sentenced Gaudrault to four years in prison for making a terrorist threat, which is a new charge in New York since the Sept., 11, 2001, attacks.

Gaudrault's threat on May 11 came less than a month after the Virginia Tech shootings that killed 32 people and just days before Skidmore College commencement.

"Given the political climate the way it is as far as all these school shootings, it almost mandated a harsh sentence," John Hogan III, Gaudrault's lawyer, said in a telephone interview yesterday. "You had to err on the side of caution."

Hogan said Gaudrault might seek help in prison "for some psychological issues." He would not say what those issues were.

Beverly police arrested Gaudrault last May at his apartment on Broadway, off Cabot Street in downtown Beverly. He had just been released from Middleton Jail after serving a sentence for an unrelated conviction.

According to Salem District Court records, police found information about student loans totaling just over $2,000, as well as scribbled notes about an Air France flight and the words "(expletive) Skidmore."

In an interview in January, Saratoga County District Attorney James Murphy said Gaudrault's mother identified her son's voice on the answering machine.

Murphy's office issued a press release yesterday, saying, "Mr. Gaudrault's threat came less than a month after the Virginia Tech shootings and days before Skidmore College commencement. Due to details left on the message machine at Colton House, Skidmore, the DA's office and the police perceived the threat as a clear and present danger."

If the law had not been changed after the Sept. 11 attacks, Gaudrault would have been charged with a misdemeanor and faced one year in jail, according to Murphy.

Gaudrault refused extradition to New York after his arrest, forcing then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to sign warrants so that Gaudrault could be turned over to New York authorities.

In addition to his four-year prison sentence, Gaudrault will be under supervision for three years after his release.