Fountain Valley School smoke bomb hoax nets prison sentence - Colorado Springs Gazette

A man who enlisted his 16-year-old son in a plot to ignite a smoke bomb in the cafeteria of a posh El Paso County boarding school was sentenced Thursday to 2½ years in prison - six months shy of the maximum he faced under a plea deal.

Bryan S. Bolding, the former director of technology at the Fountain Valley School south of Colorado Springs, wiped at tears as 4th Judicial District Judge Scott Sells rejected his attorney's plea for probation.

"You targeted children in our community," Sells said of the May 16 incident, calling it a "calculated criminal act." "To grant you probation would diminish the severity of your crime."

Bolding, 46, pleaded guilty in September to a single count of menacing, forgoing a trial in exchange for prosecutors agreeing to dismiss charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor - a misdemeanor - and two felonies alleging a hoax involving an explosive device.

He had faced up to three years in prison but was also eligible for probation and a shorter jail term under the deal.

Fountain Valley School is a private college preparatory school housed at a former ranch in Security-Widefield.

Roughly 300 people were evacuated from its campus after a cafeteria worker interrupted the plot before the smoke bomb went off. A SWAT team and bomb squad were summoned to sweep school grounds and render the device safe - part of a response that drew as many as 100 law enforcement officers, said Head of School William Webb.

"This created some real fear," Webb said in requesting an "appropriate" punishment for the crime. Despite the school's decision to hire additional security, some students elected to skip graduation ceremonies 10 days later because of lingering unease, he added.

Each of the four "candles" that made up the device had the capacity to fill a 40,000 square foot room, said prosecutor Grant Libby, who warned that students could have suffered respiratory distress or been trampled in a rush for the exits.

Before his arrest, Bolding first denied being involved, then tried to pass it off as his contribution to the school's senior prank week.

Bolding's teenage son, at the time a student, was also arrested. He is on track for a February trial in juvenile court on allegations that he was allegedly seen trying to ignite the device with a remote detonator during the episode.

Authorities say Bolding had learned earlier that year that his contract wouldn't be renewed, suggesting that revenge could have been the motive. Bolding's attorney, Richard Bednarski, denied it was anything other than a "stupid," ill-conceived joke - one that was planned without malice. He said his client had already lined up a similar job in Oklahoma and had no desire to harm or scare students. The school that had planned to hire Bolding revoked its offer, Bednarski said, arguing that Bolding's felony conviction already marked a stiff punishment, given his lack of criminal history.

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