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LOS ANGELES (CN) — A former Los Angeles deputy mayor for public safety has agreed to plead guilty to making a fake bomb threat, falsely claiming that a man had placed a bomb at City Hall because “he was tired of the city support of Israel.”
Brian Williams, 61, of Pasadena, admitted to one count of making threats regarding fire and explosives, according to an announcement Thursday by the U.S. attorney’s office in LA. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
“In an era of heated political rhetoric that has sometimes escalated into violence, we cannot allow public officials to make bomb threats,” U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. “My office will continue its efforts to keep the public safe, including from those who violate their duty to uphold the law.”
According to Williams’s plea agreement, he participated in a virtual meeting in October of last year while he was serving as deputy mayor. During this meeting, he used his personal cellphone to make a call to his city-issued cellphone.
Williams then left the virtual meeting and called the chief of staff of the Los Angeles Police Department and claimed that he had just received a call on his work phone from an unknown man who threatened to bomb Los Angeles City Hall.
About 10 minutes later, Williams sent a text message to the mayor and several high-ranking city officials in the mayor’s office, telling them he had received a bomb threat.
“The male caller stated that ‘he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda,’” Williams said in the text. “I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat.”
When police searched the building, they didn’t find any suspicious packages or devices. Williams showed them the record of an incoming call that appeared as a blocked number on his city-issued cellphone, and told them it was the unknown man who conveyed the threat.
In fact, that incoming call record was the call Williams had placed to himself from the Google Voice application on his personal cellphone, according to federal prosecutors. At no time did Williams intend to carry out the threat.
He sent additional text messages to the mayor saying there was no need to evacuate City Hall.
“I’m meeting with the threat management officers within the next 10 minutes,” he said in a follow-up text. “In light of the Jewish holidays, we are taking this thread, a little more seriously. I will keep you posted.”
An attorney for Williams didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the plea agreement.
Williams has held a variety of government positions spanning more than three decades, the LA Times reported. He spent nearly two years as a deputy mayor in Mayor Karen Bass’s office, working on issues such as police hiring, public safety spending and the search for a new police chief.
The UCLA School of Law graduate also served as deputy mayor in the administration of former Mayor James Hahn, the LA Times said. Before that, according to the newspaper, Williams spent several years as an assistant city attorney in Los Angeles.
On his LinkedIn page, Williams also lists that he was the executive director of the LA County Civilian Oversight Commission from 2016 to 2023.
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