Maximum sentence for man who caused day care bomb scare

Gabriel Thompson has been fooling people for sympathy since before he could walk, his father claims.

At just 16 months old, a young Thompson, now 33, fooled his dad into thinking his leg was broken.

"He convinced me his ankle was severely injured, so much so that he couldn't bear to let it touch the floor," wrote Lynwood Thompson in a letter to the U.S. District Court. "Of course, I took him to the emergency room where they could find absolutely nothing wrong."

The concerned father discovered the ruse when Thompson forgot which leg he was supposed to have injured "and began hoisting the other one as he crawled gingerly across the floor."

On Thursday, Gabriel Thompson again sought sympathy, asking a federal judge to give him a light sentence for a bank robbery and bomb threat to a nearby KinderCare day care center on Oct. 25 in Mount Prospect. Thompson had phoned in the bomb threat in the hopes of diverting police coverage from the area of the First Bank, 2100 S. Elmhurst Road in Mount Prospect. Unfortunately, the cell phone he used to call in the threat was registered to his home address, where police found and arrested him.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan was unmoved with the plea for sympathy, saying Thompson's scare of 46 children ages 6 months to 6 years was inexcusable.

"This crime is disgusting and totally unacceptable," Der-Yeghiayan said.

Thompson's attorney, federal defender Sergio Rodriguez, told the judge that Thompson was extremely sorry for his actions and had even written apology letters to the day care center and the bank.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Lela Johnson pointed out that Thompson, who was living at 503 W. Enterprise in Mount Prospect at the time, had committed the robbery and bomb scare while on probation from the Michigan prison system for an armed robbery of a grocery store with a sawed-off shotgun.

Although no one was hurt during the events, the bomb scare frightened dozens of children and parents, and until the building was deemed safe, "infants couldn't be fed during that time," Johnson noted.

Federal guidelines recommended a sentence of 41 to 51 months in prison, and Der-Yeghiayan said he'd even considered going above those guidelines due to the nature of the crime. But in the end, he sentenced Thompson to the maximum recommended 51 months in prison.

"This was not only stupid, but as I said, a disgusting thing to do to children," the judge said before leaving the bench.

"I agree," Thompson said.