R.I. man pleads guilty in Yale New Haven bomb threat case

HARTFORD — A former Rhode Island man has pleaded guilty to threatening to bomb Yale New Haven Hospital in 2021, officials say.

In a release, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut said Alexander Bradley, a 44-year-old formerly of Cranston, R.I., plead guilty Monday before U.S. District Judge Sarala Nagala in Hartford to an offense related to his threatening to bomb Yale New Haven Hospital.

The U.S. attorney’s office said Bradley called the Yale

University Health Clinic on May 9, 2021, spoke to a nurse and asked if he had reached Yale New Haven Hospital.

“When informed that he had not, Bradley, who refused to give his name, complained that he had been denied care at the Yale New Haven Hospital and stated that he was going to bomb the hospital,” it said. “Approximately 30 minutes later, Bradley anonymously called the Yale New Haven Hospital and stated that he had placed a pressure cooker containing a bomb outside of the building.”

The call was a hoax, the

U.S. attorney’s office, and Bradley had placed no such bomb outside the hospital. The bomb threat disrupted hospital operations and required a significant response from the New Haven Police Department, Yale Police Department and Yale New Haven Protective Service.

The U.S. attorney’s office said investigators from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force subsequently determined that the phone number used to make the threats was linked to Bradley.

It said the investigation revealed that, less than three weeks after he made the bomb threat to Yale New Haven

Hospital, he contacted a CVS pharmacy in Cranston, R.I., and said that he was going to “shoot up” and “blow up” a hospital.

The U.S. attorney’s office said Bradley was arrested on April 28, 2022. A month later, while out on bond and living in a residential treatment facility, it said, Bradley removed his location monitoring bracelet and absconded. He has been detained since his rearrest on July 14, 2023.

Bradley pleaded guilty to conveying false information about explosives, and false information and hoaxes, the U.S. attorney’s office said.