Jul 31, 2019 5 min read

A man accused of making a bomb threat at the Greene County Courthouse in June sobbed through his testimony in court Wednesday, saying that he wasn’t the one making threats that morning.

“I said I didn’t do it,” Gene Michael Luff choked out during his preliminary hearing.

Luff, 33, of 428 Second St., Vestaburg, chose to represent himself during the hearing before District Judge Glenn Bates. Luff was charged last month by Waynesburg police with falsely reporting weapons of mass destruction and terroristic threats causing evacuation, following the evacuation of the county courthouse June 20 after a bomb threat was called into the public defender’s office.

The investigating borough officer, Tom Ankrom, called the secretary who answered that phone call, Cherie Brasile, to the stand Wednesday. She told the court that the 8:35 a.m. phone call was brief.

“He said, ‘I’m to advise you that there’s a bomb in the courthouse,'” Brasile told the court.

The caller then hung up, but Brasile wrote down the Texas phone number and gave it to police.

Police evacuated the building and the block around it and brought down bomb-sniffing K9s from Pittsburgh to clear the courthouse of any threats. No explosives or weapons were found.

The day before, Luff was in Public Defender Harry Cancelmi’s office with his friend, Danny McElroy. McElroy had been meeting with Cancelmi about his jury trial for felony weapons charges that was supposed to take place June 20, the morning of the bomb threat.

Brasile told the court that the meeting became “heated,” and that Cancelmi told Luff that he wasn’t his client, McElroy was. She told the court that Luff had been demanding that people be subpoenaed to testify at the trial.

“He smacked his hands on the table and was demanding that the trial be continued,” Brasile said. “Cancelmi told him to get the hell out of his office.”

When Luff called himself to the stand to testify Wednesday, he told the court about his relationship with the McElroy brothers – Justin, 29, and Danny, 27 – and why he was in that meeting.

Luff told the court that Justin had been living with him in Vestaburg and had asked Luff to go with his brother, Danny, to the meeting with Cancelmi to try to get Cancelmi to seek a continuance of the jury trial. Justin also went to the meeting but didn’t stay, Luff said.

When Luff was told to leave the meeting, he did. Later that night, he faced Justin at his residence, Luff said.

“He started getting really angry and started directing it at me,” Luff testified, becoming overwhelmed with emotion. “He kept telling me this continuance better go through. The whole time he’s showing me his knife.”

The next morning – the day of Danny’s trial – Luff said Justin pressured him to call the public defender’s office to find out if they made a motion to continue the trial.

“He kept saying, ‘You better make that call,'” Luff said.

At 7:02 a.m., Luff left a voicemail on the public defender’s phone. Ankrom played the message in court Wednesday. In the message, Luff made it seem like he was talking to someone in the public defender’s office, though the call had gone to voicemail.

“I knew no one was there, but I was scared,” Luff told the court.

Luff denied making the second phone call, which involved the bomb threat that resulted in the evacuation and, ultimately, the continuation of Danny’s trial. Ankrom said police were able to trace that Texas number to an app “TextNow,” which assigned the phone number that morning at 8:33 a.m. to a user name “geneluff85” and email address, geneluff@msn.com.

When police questioned Luff about his involvement, Luff admitted to being in the meeting with Cancelmi, but denied making the bomb threat.

“I actually thought it was a joke at first, until I realized what was going on,” Luff said in court.

Luff told the court that the email and username are what he uses for his Facebook account, and suggested that Justin could have gotten it from Facebook to use for the “TextNow” app and ultimately to make the bomb threat phone call.

“I know someone else did this,” he choked out between sobs. “I know it wasn’t me.”

Ankrom testified that Luff never told police about Justin living with him or feeling threatened by Justin.

Ankrom also stated that Luff wasn’t truthful with him in the initial police interview, saying that Luff had told him that when he left the courthouse June 19, he had no more involvement with Danny’s case. That proved false at 7:02 a.m. June 20 when Luff left the voicemail at the public defender’s office, Ankrom said.

Bates held the charges for county court and advised Luff to get an attorney. Luff remains free on $15,000 bond. Ankrom said neither Justin nor Danny McElroy are currently in jail.