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News Update: Threatening letters target Smith


Anonymous letters making "racist threats" toward athletic director Gene Smith have appeared at ASU and Ohio State University, police reported Friday.

The ASU Foundation and the East campus administration building each received a typed letter March 17 from Cleveland that threatened Smith, according to records released Friday by the ASU Department of Public Safety.

Officials at both universities reported the letters were related to Smith's pending employment at Ohio State. Smith will leave ASU April 8 to become Ohio State's athletic director.

At least four other anonymous letters were received at various Ohio State athletic offices, said Rick Amweg, an assistant chief of police and spokesman for the Ohio State University Department of Public Safety.

Neither university released the text of the letters Friday, but ASU spokeswoman Terri Shafer said the letters contained "specific threats" against Smith.

"The person used 'I will do this' and 'I will do that,'" she said.

Shafer said Smith was notified the day the letters were received at ASU. Smith declined to comment on the letters Friday.

An ASU DPS officer wrote on Thursday that a copy of its report would be given to the FBI's Phoenix field office, but FBI officials were unavailable for comment late Friday.

Shafer said she was not aware of any additional security provided to Smith by the University in response to the threats.

"It is my understanding that we're not taking any additional security precautions," she said. "Because [the letters] were postmarked in Ohio ... it's unlikely the person issuing the threats would travel here."

ASU DPS did not release the text of the letters received in Arizona, based on the advice of officials from ASU's Office of General Counsel.

"ASU will not act as a re-publisher of text that can be construed as defamatory and/or text that could place another in a false light or of text that intrudes into the privacy of members of Gene Smith's family," Associate General Counsel Cynthia Jewett wrote in a memo to The State Press.

Amweg said OSU DPS also was not releasing copies of the letters.

"We are not prepared to release the copy of the letter at this time because of the status of the investigation," he said.

But Amweg said all the letters received in Ohio were identical.

"These are not different letters," he said. "These are photocopies ... of one text."

The two letters received in Arizona contained the same text but were not believed to be photocopies, Shafer said.

After speaking with an OSU detective on March 22, an ASU officer reported that OSU DPS was "working on obtaining any fingerprints from the letters/envelopes. They do not have a current suspect."

Amweg would not disclose specifics on the methods being used to investigate the case.

Shafer said ASU DPS had checked its letters for fingerprints but did not know if any usable prints were found.

Reach the reporter at brian.indrelunas@asu.edu.


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