MEDFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - A California man has agreed to plead guilty in connection with a series of calls made to the Tufts University Police Department in May 2021, according to U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins.
Sammy Sultan, 49, of Hayward, Calif., allegedly made eight phone calls to TUPD on or around May 28, 2021, six of which included specific threats. In the calls, he allegedly claimed to have entered a dorm room somewhere on the Medford campus, to be hiding under a bed, and to be in possession of a taser and pistols. He said multiple times that he intended to use the taser if a woman returned to the dorm room and found him hiding under the bed. He allegedly played the sounds of a taser and pistol during the calls.
TUPD and local police carried out an hours-long, room-by-room search of several buildings on the Medford campus, but failed to find the caller. A later investigation found that Sultan had made the calls from California. A law enforcement officer familiar with Sultan’s voice from a prior investigation recognized Sultan’s voice on the TUPD call recordings.
Sultan previously pleaded guilty in December 2017 in the Northern District of California to making “hundreds of obscene and harassing phone calls to law enforcement agencies, for which he was sentenced to two years in prison,” according to Rollins.
The charge of making threatening communications in interstate commerce provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
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