Bomb threat backfires on Oklahoma man trying to avoid going to court, feds say

An Oklahoma man wanted to avoid a court hearing by reporting a hoax bomb threat, authorities say.

His plan backfired.

Randy Paul Shelby, 41, is accused of calling police to report a plot to bomb the Tulsa County Courthouse the night before he was set to appear in a domestic abuse case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Shelby anonymously told police a member of the Bandidos motorcycle club was building bombs, authorities say. He said the bomb was set to explode at 11 a.m. the next morning — which was the exact time of his court hearing, authorities say.

“It’s getting to the point where I think it’s getting pretty bad,” he told a Tulsa police dispatcher, according to authorities.

Investigators used Facebook to track down the man Shelby accused of plotting to bomb the courthouse and interviewed the man and his girlfriend. Upon listening to a recording of the call to police, they both identified the voice as belong to Shelby, authorities say.

“Randy Shelby didn’t want to face the consequences for his alleged acts of domestic abuse. So, he phoned in a bomb threat to stop the related court proceeding at the Tulsa County Courthouse,” U.S. Attorney Trent Shores said in a news release. “He then made a bad situation worse when he tried to frame another man as the potential bomber.”

In November, Shelby pleaded guilty to false information about bombs in a courthouse. He was sentenced Tuesday to a year in prison and three years of probation.

This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 8:18 PM with the headline "Bomb threat backfires on Oklahoma man trying to avoid going to court, feds say."