Ohio Man admits guilt in FBI gate ramming
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
An Ohio man who led police on a chase, claimed he had a bomb and rammed through the gates of Pittsburgh’s FBI headquarters on the South Side pleaded guilty Monday to several offenses in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
Thomas Richard Ross, 49, of New Waterford, still faces federal charges for destroying government property in the 2016 incident.
Federal officials estimated he did about $350,000 worth of damage to a gate, a barrier plate and a light pole.
Ross pleaded guilty to fleeing and eluding, simple assault and two summary traffic violations before Judge Jill E. Rangos. A number of other charges were withdrawn.
She sentenced him to five to 10 months in the Allegheny County Jail followed by three years of probation.
Judge Rangos gave Ross credit for time served, meaning he has completed the incarceration portion of his sentence. He remains detained pending federal trial, however.
In a Dec. 21 order, U.S. MagistrateJudge Robert C. Mitchell wrote that there were “no conditions short of detention which can preserve the safety of the community.”
Police said Ross, a heroin addict, blew through nine red lights in a dump truck barreling down Carson Street shortly before 11 a.m. July 26, 2016.
A Pittsburgh motorcycle officer, John Wester, started chasing the truck. The driver refused commands to pull over.
“Each time the driver would just wave his arm out the window as to wave me off,” Officer Wester wrote in an affidavit supporting criminal charges against Ross.
Officer Wester said he was almost struck when the dump truck swerved.
When the truck neared the FBI building in the 3300 block of East Carson Street, Officer Wester drew his gun.
Ross revved the engine and screamed, “I need to see the FBI, I have a bomb and will blow this place up. I’m going to ram this ... gate. This is abuse,” the affidavit said.
Ross then crashed through the gate and struck a light pole in the parking lot. He was taken into custody.
No explosives were found.
At a federal detention hearing in December, FBI Agent Paul McDonnell said Ross later told him he wanted to get arrested so he would go to jail and get sober.
Ross’ federal public defender, Linda Cohn, said at the time that her client had been sober for more than a year.
Although he owned his own construction business and was able to function, she said he had been a heroin addict for decades ever since he became hooked on opioid painkillers following a back injury.
On the day of the crash, she said, he was “out of his mind” on a combination of methadone, cocaine and heroin.
“He was clearly desperate,” she said.
The Pittsburgh police affidavit said Ross had come to the FBI building a week before the crash, driving the same truck. A security officer confronted him at the exit gate, where he was “messing around.” He said he wanted to speak to an agent but became “unstable and erratic” when asked why.
Rosswas taken to UPMC Presbyterian to be treated after the crash. When he was released, he was taken to a police vehicle in a wheelchair.
Once Ross got outside, he jumped up and ran for a short distance before police caught him.