No jail time for Wheaton woman's threat to shoot at UIC

A 25-year-old Wheaton woman who threatened a mass shooting at the University of Illinois at Chicago in February will have quite a large tab to pay, but no jail time.

Mahtab Shirani, of the 2000 block of West Roosevelt, sent a threatening e-mail to the faculty and staff at UIC in the wake of the Northern Illinois University shootings. She was easily caught because she used a campus computer to send the message.

She pleaded guilty in July to one count of sending a threatening communication through an instrument of interstate commerce.

Tuesday, Judge Ruben Castillo gave her five months of home confinement and five years of probation, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher McFadden. She will be allowed to leave her home for work and school.

She will also have to pay the costs of the investigation and resources expended by the University in sending out a campus wide security alert. The total comes to $21,300, which Shirani voluntarily agreed to pay, said her lawyer George Pappas. At the time of the threat, Shirani had just lost her mother to cancer, he said.

Three people affected by the scare came to court Tuesday and gave victim impact statements, and Shirani apologized to the court for her actions.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=214248">Wheaton woman admits making threat <span class="date">[07/02/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=141033">FBI: Wheaton student expected to be caught <span class="date">[02/24/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=140809">UIC student from Wheaton arrested by FBI in alleged shooting threat <span class="date">[02/23/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>