School threat results in prison time for Fort Calhoun man

News Channel Nebraska

A Fort Calhoun man was sentenced to prison for his school threat conviction.

Acting U.S. Attorney Susan Lehr said 21-year-old Nathan Bonacci, of Fort Calhoun, was sentenced in federal Court in Omaha on Wednesday. He was convicted for impeding or interfering with a federal officer. Bonacci will serve six months in prison with a one-year term of supervised release after. There is no parole in the federal system.

According to court documents, Bonacci posted on Feb. 10, 2022, on an app that he would drive his car to Roosevelt Elementary School in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and kill as many people as he could find.

Officials said a user on an app came across the post and sent it via email to the principal of Roosevelt Elementary School, who then told law enforcement.

The FBI assigned a Special Agent to investigate the potential threat. The FBI investigation included obtaining emergency disclosures from Yahoo! and Twitter, which lead to identifying the IP address used to post the threat was maintained by Cox Communications. Additional investigation revealed the Cox Communications subscriber was Bonacci’s brother. The FBI Special Agent interviewed Bonacci’s brother, who recognized the username used to post the threat was Bonacci’s. Bonacci was then found and interviewed.

Authorities state that Bonacci acknowledged that he sent the communication but indicated he posted it to a group of his friends because he thought his friends would find it to be funny. Officials said Bonacci’s false threat impeded the assigned Special Agent from accomplishing his other assigned duties and interfered with his ability to work on legitimate investigations due to a need to determine if this was a valid threat to an elementary school.