A Kent State University professor was charged in federal
court with lying to the FBI.
Julio Pino, 58, of Kent, was charged via a criminal
information with one count of making a false statement to law enforcement.
The charge was announced by U.S. Attorney Justin E. Herdman
and FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony.
According to the criminal information filed in U.S. District
Court in Cleveland:
Pino was a Facebook friend of a St. Louis resident
identified in the information at J.E. Pino posted numerous statements and
images on social media regarding J.E. and J.E.’s child custody issues between
May 2015 and January 2016.
Among these conversations, on or about September 11, 2015,
Defendant and J.E. had the following communications:
J.E. wrote, “I’m playing the game backwards. and winning! . . . I will kill 100s of people if they take my
rights as a father away!”
Pino stated, “Yes, in military terms this is known as ‘the
Parthian shot’.”
J.E. wrote, “hell, 10000’s! . . . It’;s [sic] time for Men to act like men
again. . . . See the thing I’ve got on
my side is God. That allows me certain
rights. One of those rights is to strike
down evil with furious vengeance! . . .
People don’t even know how crazy I am yet! That’s because no ones ever tried to take my
[relative]. They’re about to meet to
[the] Monster they’ve created.”
Pino responded, “Devour them, [J.E.].”
J.E. wrote, “Thank You! I will! :)
J.E. wrote on his Facebook wall a series of threatening
communications in December 2015 through January 2016 directed against a St.
Louis Family Court Judge adjudicating J.E.’s child custody case. On Jan. 11, 2016, J.E. also wrote on his own
Facebook wall, “I (expletive) love Julio Pino, even if he does eventually do
something that most consider horrible, I’ll still love him because I know him
in a deeper way than most of you even could.”
Law enforcement authorities in St. Louis arrested J.E. on
Jan. 11, 2016, for making threatening communications against the judge.
The FBI was involved in investigating J.E.’s threats against
the judge. FBI agents on Jan. 18, 2016, interviewed Pino in Miami about his
social media posts and comments concerning his interactions with J.E. and
discussions with J.E. about J.E.’s child custody issues. The FBI agents
recorded this interview in connection with an ongoing investigation concerning,
among other things, Pino’s interactions with J.E. as described above.
Federal grand jury subpoenas from the Northern District of
Ohio were issued during the course of that investigation. In response to
questions from FBI agents concerning whether he ever had conversations with
J.E. on the social media accounts, Pino, knowing full well the content of his
social media interactions with J.E., stated he “never heard of [J.E. or] maybe
I heard of him through the news,” he did not recall conversations with J.E. and
that his conversations with J.E. were “invented conversation[s].” When asked again
if he remembered the conversation with J.E., Pino responded, “I never heard of
him, well maybe I heard of him through the news,” and then later stated, “the
other way around it is certainly possible that he could have heard of me and
made up this conversation, invented it.”
If convicted, the defendant’s sentence will be determined by
the Court after review of factors unique to this case, including the
defendant’s prior criminal records, if any, the defendant’s role in the offense
and the characteristics of the violation.
In all cases, the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in
most cases it will be less than the maximum.
This investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. The case is being
prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Om Kakani and Michelle Baeppler.
An information is only a charge and is not evidence of
guilt. A defendant is entitled to a fair
trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.
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