Chief of Police John Anton reports that Dewitt Police have made an arrest in regards to the bomb threat at ShoppingTown Mall that occurred on May 23.

The DeWitt Police Department charged Moriah Watkins, 31 , of Syracuse with falsely reporting an incident in the second degree and making a punishable false written statement.

On May 23 the DeWitt Police Department–along with the Manlius Police, New York State Police, the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office, Syracuse Police and DeWitt Fire Department–responded to ShoppingTown Mall after three employees of the mall reported that they each had received a text message threatening that a bomb was in the building.

The building and perimeter were checked by officers and K-9 units, and it was deemed to be a false report.

It was determined that a third party texting app was used to send the threatening text message to the three employees’ phones.  A search warrant was served on the texting app company, and information contained within the messaging logs from the account provided a link to the initial reporting employee’s phone, which was also searched subsequent to a search warrant.

The suspect, employee Moriah Watkins, was questioned regarding this information and confessed to sending the message to herself and the other two employees.

Watkins was charged with falsely reporting an incident in the second degree for sending the message and helping to alert emergency response. She was also charged with making a punishable false written statement for the statement she provided on 0May 23, in which she claimed to not have any knowledge of the sender of the message.

Watkins was released on an appearance ticket and is scheduled to appear for arraignment on June 12 in DeWitt Court.