Officials: Mom destroyed evidence in school plot case

The Suffolk teen charged twice in three years for plotting to commit a mass killing of his former classmates had fuel for explosives, diagrams to aid in the attack and a journal that described his thoughts about his most recent plan, prosecutors said.

But the felony conspiracy case against Christopher Franko, who turned 18 Tuesday, now rests largely on witnesses and digital evidence because, officials said, his mother got rid of those items, which could have also linked him to the plot.

Franko's mother, Nancy, denied the allegation Tuesday.

"I did not take anything from the house, I did not hide anything. That is all false," she said in an interview.

The attack at Connetquot High School that officials say Franko planned in recent months with Dana Saltzman, 16, was "chillingly similar" to one in 2007 in which Franko, then 15, and a friend planned a Columbine-style attack at the school, said Assistant District Attorney Glenn Kurtzrock.

In March, Franko and Saltzman inquired about buying shotguns at a sporting goods store, Suffolk police said after their arrests. In recent months, they inquired about buying guns and searched online for bomb-making instructions to kill students and staff on June 10, officials alleged in court. They then intended to kill responding police and themselves, prosecutors said.

Franko pleaded not guilty at his Riverhead arraignment and was held without bail. A Suffolk judge also ordered him not to contact anyone related to the school. His attorney, John Schick, cited unspecified "extenuating circumstances" for their actions and described Franko and Saltzman as potentially unstable.

"This may be more of a fantasy than anything else," he said. Saltzman was arrested April 30 and pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge. She faces a felony conspiracy charge.

Prosecutors said Tuesday Saltzman, of Commack, told police of several items Christopher Franko had at his Bohemia house connected to the alleged plot. Police did not find the items when they searched the house. Among the things Nancy Franko is believed to have thrown away or destroyed were her son's iPhone, bottles and containers for camping fuel meant for homemade bombs, and a flash drive containing his journal, Kurtzrock said.

"We don't know if she did this to protect her son [from prosecution] or if she just didn't want that stuff in the house," he said. When asked if she had committed a crime, Kurtzrock said, "If we had evidence to support that, we would have acted on it."

Police say Nancy Franko contacted a social worker because she was concerned about references to a plot in her son's e-mails. The social worker contacted police, who then began investigating.

Much of the journal was later recovered in an e-mail; threatening text messages were also taken from Saltzman's phone; a surveillance video from a sporting goods store shows Franko asking about buying guns, he said.

In 2007, Christopher Franko pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted conspiracy and was sentenced to a year in juvenile detention. Officials said the motive for the recent plot appeared to be continuing anger at his former schoolmates.