Middle school teacher cited in more threats

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — A sixth-grade teacher accused of stalking students and threatening to blow up her school has been charged with making more threats against children.

Michelle L. Dohm, 41, of Thurmont, Md., was released on $200,000 bail Monday, her attorney, Thomas C. Morrow, said.

The amount was in addition to the $100,000 bail for the previous charges, he said.

The Frederick County grand jury returned an indictment Friday charging Miss Dohm with three more felony counts of threatening to detonate a destructive device, and two misdemeanor counts of stalking, defined as conduct that includes pursuing another person with the intent of scaring them, the Frederick News-Post reported.

The new charges bring to 12 the number of felony threat counts pending against Miss Dohm and the number of misdemeanor stalking counts to four.

The charges bring the number of victims to five — all Thurmont Middle School boys.

Miss Dohm, who is on unpaid leave from her job as a social studies teacher at Thurmont Middle School, has denied all the charges.

She told the Associated Press in December, shortly after the initial charges were announced, that the real perpetrator might be someone who was jealous of the attention showered on a local Little League all-star team last summer.

“Michelle denies any knowledge of the allegations, and we think it’s unfortunate that the state feels the need to continue to attempt to essentially assassinate her character by these additional charges,” Mr. Morrow said.

Two of the new charges involve a Thurmont boy who received a suspicious package in late April that turned out to be harmless, and a letter several weeks earlier, Thurmont Police Chief Gregory Eyler said.

The third threat was received by another boy April 21, according to the indictment, which didn’t specify the type of threat or how it was delivered.

One of the victims is among the four seventh-grade boys targeted last fall by a series of bizarre notes that made bomb references and used words such as “suffer,” “bound,” “tied” and “die.”

All four of the initial victims were members of the Thurmont team that won the 2005 state Little League championship and reached the semifinals of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Tournament in August.

Miss Dohm has a pretrial motions hearing scheduled June 8, followed by trial June 12.