A federal judge sentenced Jason Duhaime, the 47-year-old former technology manager and director of the Immersive Media Lab at Northeastern University who staged a bomb hoax in 2022, to one year and one day in federal prison Jan. 13.
The sentencing marks over two years since the initial explosion hoax and a whirlwind legal battle as Duhaime, who pleaded not guilty, insisted it wasn’t a hoax. At approximately 7 p.m. Sept. 13, 2022, Duhaime staged an explosion in a Holmes Hall lab, claiming to be injured when he opened a pressurized Pelican-style case that expelled “sharp” objects. He claimed the case contained an anonymous “violent note” that threatened to “destroy the lab.” Duhaime notified authorities of a second, unopened Pelican case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Investigators quickly zeroed in on Duhaime as a suspect after finding no evidence of explosives in Holmes Hall and a word-for-word copy of the reported “violent note” on Duhaime’s computer.
A federal jury originally convicted Duhaime in June 2024 of providing false information relating to an explosive device and making false statements to federal investigators, according to Duhaime’s sentencing memorandum. Duhaime was arrested in San Antonio in October 2022 after an FBI investigation into the hoax.
The university declined to comment on Duhaime’s sentencing.
After Duhaime’s two attorneys from the Boston-based law firm Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein dropped him as their client in January 2024 due to “a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship,” the court appointed Duhaime assistant federal public defender Scott Lauer following his lawyers’ withdrawal, according to court dockets.
In a sentencing memorandum filed by Lauer Jan. 10 asking that the court sentence Duhaime to time served and two years of supervised release, he called Duhaime “a broken man, both in body and in spirit.” Lauer detailed Duhaime’s declining physical health due to the development of a spinal abscess, writing that he can “barely walk.” Duhaime has had back surgeries in 2011 and 2017, according to the memorandum.
“Today, Mr. Duhaime is a convicted felon and, in many respects, a ruined man,” Lauer wrote, adding that, though Duhaime found work through a temporary agency at a factory in New Hampshire, as well as a retail position at Market Basket, he had lost his career. He is unable to work due to his present health complications, Lauer wrote.
Lauer wrote in the memorandum that Duhaime endured a “traumatic childhood” and was raised by an alcoholic father who left the family when he was 12 years old, leaving the family to struggle financially. Duhaime received some special education services while in school in New Hampshire before graduating and attending Keene State University to study computer science. Thereafter, he worked at Boston Medical Center before beginning at Northeastern in 2014.
The alleged explosion, which was reported nationally, caused widespread panic on campus and the cancellation of several evening classes in surrounding buildings. Among those responding Sept. 13 included the Northeastern University Police Department, the Boston Police Department’s bomb squad and multiple federal and state law enforcement agencies before authorities deemed it a hoax. The incident triggered the evacuation of a portion of the Northeastern campus.
“Staging a hoax explosion and lying to the FBI about it isn’t a harmless act. It’s a crime,” said Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI, Boston Division, in a statement following Duhaime’s conviction. “The FBI and our partners take all threats to life seriously because protecting human life is our absolute priority.”
A search of Duhaime’s office Sept. 14, 2022, found an electronic copy of the anonymous letter that was likely printed between 2:50 p.m. and 3:56 p.m. the day of the hoax, according to a report published by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In the note, Duhaime warned of a takeover of artificial intelligence. The opening of the note reads, “To the lab manager of the VR lab and the other lab managers in the MSO!!!! It has come to our attention that this VR lab is trying to change the world!” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“In the case you got today we could have planted explosives but not this time!!!” the end of the letter said. “Take notice!!! You have two months to take operations down or else!!!!! WE ARE WATCHING YOU,” the letter continued.
Duhaime did not have a permanent residence in Massachusetts despite his status as a full-time Northeastern employee, and was sleeping in the Immersive Media Lab and in his office when he was in Boston, according to an affidavit released in 2022. He officially resided in Texas with his girlfriend and would travel there “every two or three weeks,” the document said.
