BELCHERTOWN — A Hadley resident was taken into custody by the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency after pleading guilty to a criminal charge in Eastern Hampshire Superior Court on Monday.
Abdul Ismail, 27, who is a citizen of Ghana, pleaded guilty to one count of threatening to commit a crime. Prosecutors alleged that Ismail made bomb threats against the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a UMass student in April 2017.
Ismail was not enrolled as a student or employed at the university. He was visiting a UMass student he had met on the popular dating app Tinder at her campus dormitory in Coolidge Hall, officials said.
Campus police alleged that Ismail told the woman he was visiting that he was a terrorist, that she would be his first victim and that he would blow up her high-rise dorm building.
During an April hearing in Eastern Hampshire District Court, Ismail’s lawyer, Alan Rubin, said Ismail’s remarks may have been misunderstood, and that the prosecution’s case was based on hearsay and little details.
“Beyond that, there is not a shred of evidence that Mr. Ismail was doing anything wrong, that he was a terrorist,” Rubin told a judge in April. “There’s no evidence here that he actually presents a danger.”
Upon accepting Ismail’s plea on Monday, Judge Thomas Estes placed the conviction “on file” for one year, meaning no official sentence will be imposed if Ismail avoids further legal trouble during that year, according to the Northwestern district attorney’s office.
He has been held on bail since his arrest.
Ismail was taken into custody by ICE officers later Monday, according to the district attorney’s office. Ismail came to the United States as an asylum seeker from Ghana, Rubin said in court in April.
Immigration officials found that Ismail had a legitimate claim for asylum, and he was hoping to obtain permanent residency in the near future, according to Rubin. With the current charges he’s facing, however, that may change.