Connetquot mom: Accused son never intended harm

The mother of a 15-year-old boy arrested for plotting a Columbine-style attack at his school said her son released frustration over daily teasing and bullying in the pages of a black, spiral-bound notebook. He never intended, she said, to act out out the violent revenge fantasies he conjured up.

But because, police said, the notebook was filled with hatred for people and described a plot to shoot and kill students and teachers at Connetquot High School, the teen was arrested in July. Last month he pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy, a felony.

Because he's charged as a juvenile, Newsday is not naming the teen or his mother.

On Thursday, after a brief hearing in Family Court in Central Islip, a judge postponed the teen's sentencing to Oct. 17. Outside the courthouse, his mother said he's getting help at Sagamore Children's Psychiatric Center in Dix Hills to learn better ways of coping with hardships.

Before his arrest, his mother said, the Bohemia boy found solace in the notebook, which he kept a secret and carried with him everywhere, including to work at McDonald's, where it was ultimately found in the restaurant's parking lot and turned over to police.

"Writing was his way of getting it out," the mother said. "He was venting. He's very, very sorry for what he did. But he would never do any of those things."

The teasing began in the middle of his fourth-grade year when the family moved out of a house and into a mobile home, his mother said.

"I just tried to stress the point that it could be worse," she said. "We could be living in our car."

Before the move, she said, the boy had a large group of close-knit friends at Sycamore Avenue Elementary in Bohemia, where he attended kindergarten through half of fourth grade. They didn't move far, but the boy then had to attend John Pearl Elementary, also in the Connetquot district, where his mother said he had a slow start in making new friends. But eventually, she said, "He did have a very strong friendship base."

Toward the end of junior high, the boy and his friends drifted apart, his mother recalled. "He just became more quiet, but he was never defiant or angry," she said.

Then in January of his freshman year, the teen told his mother he wanted to be home-schooled. "Kids were making fun of him on a daily basis," she said.

The teasing centered mostly around living in a trailer park, but also included jabs at not being as athletic as other children, his mother said.

The teen kept so much of the bullying to himself and in his writing, his mother said, that only now is she learning the extent of it. She said she visits him at Sagamore almost daily and speaks to him over the phone when she can't see him.

She said there are things she's learning that don't seem to match the son she knew, the boy who liked to golf and disliked paintball because it's too violent.

He will remain at Sagamore, where he's getting 10th-grade schooling, until he's sentenced. That was postponed pending a school meeting next month that will determine whether the teen should receive special education services.

While the teen's mother doesn't want him to ever go back to Connetquot High School, she said her son waffles on the idea. But for now, she said, he seems happy at Sagamore -- and is keeping a new journal there.