Man Pleads Guilty in Va. Tech E-Mail Case

ROANOKE, April 28 -- A Nevada man pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to sending threatening e-mails to two Virginia Tech students in which he glorified Seung Hui Cho's 2007 shooting rampage at the university.

Johnmarlo Balasta Napa, 28, idolized Cho, bought the same weapons Cho used in the shootings and then sent the threatening e-mails on the eve of the first anniversary of the day Cho killed 32 people and then himself, federal agents testified.

Bart McEntire, who worked on the case as a supervisory special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said after the hearing that agents believe that Napa was planning a school shooting when he was arrested.

The e-mails, sent from seunghuichorevenge@yahoo.com, included photographs of Cho depicted as a hero, parodies of the victims and a picture of Cho holding paper dolls with photos of the faces of the two students along with the people he killed. They also had excerpts of the manifesto Cho sent to a TV network before his shootings.

Napa pleaded guilty to one count of sending an e-mail threat and faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced July 13. He has been held without bond since his arrest last April.

His public defender, Fay Spence, said Napa did not intend to hurt or threaten the women, adding that he had received a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Spence said he was discharged from the Air Force in 2003 because of the diagnosis.

Napa told U.S. District Judge James C. Turk that he sent the e-mails because he "had concerns about violence in school shootings." He said he tried to alert authorities about parodies of the massacre on the Internet.

"I sent it to the two women hoping they could do something about it," Napa said.

The two women used to attend Virginia Tech and were stalked there by Cho before the shootings, said FBI agent David Frey. They had reported Cho to a resident adviser after Cho sent them unwanted e-mails and repeatedly called one of them.

One had known Cho from Westfield High School in Chantilly. The other lived near Cho's home in Centreville. Napa said he learned the names of the women when they were quoted in a newspaper article about the shootings.

After receiving the 2008 e-mails, the two students contacted authorities, who traced the communications to a public computer at Nevada State College.

Police focused on Napa in part because as a student at Nevada State College he would wear body armor to class, Frey said.