USU alumnus faces three felony charges for threats made to USU, Mormons

A Salt Lake City man being charged with sending e-mails threatening a shooting at Utah State University and using Facebook to threaten the lives of members of the LDS Church pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Thursday morning. Mark Eric Bayne, 36, faces three counts of felony threats in interstate commerce, the interstate commerce portion coming from his use of Internet to carry out his threats. A 3-day jury trial has been set for February 28. Baynes, who graduated from USU in May, is accused of using Salt Lake Community College computers to to send e-mails expressing “deep-seeded anger” and “vulgar epithets” to federal, state and private institutions, according to court documents. These e-mails also threatened to commit violent acts against these people and institutions that Bayne thought had wronged him. An excerpt from Bayne’s e-mail to United States Department of Education, as listed in the indictment, reads, “The hope is that they will frustrate me into dropping out of grad school and eventually getting a weapon; anticipating that I would become so embittered I would seek to exact my revenge by shooting innocent random people or using my education to create an explosive device. Shootings have happened before here in Utah (see: Trolley Square). Then the story would be that some crazed Negro veteran off of his medication unable to achieve success decided to seek a suckers way out. All I ask is that you create a Wiki page in my memory with the real story.” Bayne, according to the indictment, also sent e-mails to USU that referred to workplace shootings. Bayne allegedly used Facebook as a means of carrying more threats. A Facebook status posted Nov. 26 referred to Utahns and Mormons as “the worst form of humanity” and threatened to “take at least thirty of their women and children” daily, according to the indictment. This status post also contained specific names of targets. Bayne is being held at the Davis County Jail by order of U.S. Marshals. – [email protected]

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