Man charged with courthouse bomb threat acquitted
A Vestaburg man accused of calling in a bomb threat to the Greene County Courthouse two years ago was acquitted of all charges following a jury trial last week.
Gene Michael Luff, 35, had been charged by Waynesburg police with bomb threats reported without knowledge of a bomb and terroristic threats that cause the evacuation of a building following the June 20, 2019, incident. Nearly two years later, he was acquitted following a two-day trial that had been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Mr. Luff maintained his innocence throughout the entire process,” said Luff’s attorney, Timothy Ross. “We are thankful for the time and attention of the jury and are pleased that the judicial process worked as it was intended.”
Waynesburg police and the Greene County Sheriff’s Department evacuated the courthouse and a block around it the morning of June 20, 2019, after a bomb threat was called in to the public defender’s office. Bomb-sniffing K9s from Pittsburgh cleared the building of any threats, as no explosives or weapons were found.
According to investigators, the secretary who answered the phone call, Cherie Brasile, testified that the caller told her there was a bomb in the courthouse before hanging up. Brasile wrote down the Texas phone number and gave it to police.
Waynesburg police Chief Tom Ankrom traced the number to an app “TextNow” and a user name “geneluff85” and email address, geneluff@msn.com.
The day prior, Luff was in public defender Harry Cancelmi’s office with his friend, Danny McElroy, whose jury trial for felony weapons charges was supposed to take place June 20, the morning of the bomb threat. The meeting became heated, according to Brasile, and Cancelmi kicked Luff out of his office.
At Luff’s preliminary hearing two years ago, he testified that McElroy’s older brother Justin had pressured him – allegedly threatening him with a knife – to convince Cancelmi to postpone his brother’s trial. About 7 a.m. the morning of the scheduled trial, Luff left a voicemail in Cancelmi’s office, asking if the trial had been continued.
At 8:35 a.m., just before McElroy’s trial, the bomb threat call was made. The courthouse was evacuated most of the day, thus resulting in a continuation of the trial. Luff denied making the bomb threat call.
Ankrom said in a recent interview that he doesn’t intend to investigate the bomb threat any further.
“I’m not looking into it further because I feel I arrested the right person,” he said. “Apparently the jurors saw differently.”