NJ Dad Sentenced to Federal Prison for One Direction Bomb Threat at Hersheypark

Forty-seven-year-old New Jersey dad William H. Klein was so upset that he couldn’t get his daughters tickets to a July 5 One Direction show at Hersheypark that he called in a bomb threat, and today he’s facing the consequences. On Tuesday he was sentenced to eight months in federal prison for making a call to Hershey Entertainment and Resorts to say,“If One Direction plays tomorrow, the stadium will blow up.” Penn Live reports: 

In a sentencing memorandum, [Assistant Federal Public Defender Thomas A. Thornton] attributed Klein’s threat to mental health problems, a desperate desire to bond with his 10- and 14-year-old daughters, a failed attempt to get tickets for the One Direction gig and horrific judgment.

Thornton wrote that Klein, who had repeated child custody disputes with his ex-wife, tried to get tickets through a friend and told his very excited daughters that he was taking them to the concert. The friend didn’t come through, however, and Klein’s other attempts to get tickets for the sold-out performance came to naught.

So what Klein hoped would be a “perfect bonding experience” with his girls turned very sour, Thornton wrote. He said one of Klein’s daughter’s vowed never to talk to him again if he didn’t take her to the concert.

To the delight of thousands of screaming teenage girls, One Direction did perform that night, but only after a routine lockdown and bomb sweep that you know had fans biting their little nails to the quick.