The full story: in the spring of 2023, I was in my last year of my EE undergrad at MSU. I worked for a PAC at a high level, and volunteered with an activism org I had previously led in Montana. I was pretty well known and controversial on campus for this reason.
At the time, the org I was volunteering with was going hard on a bill, HB 517, which would have put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot to shift the balance of power over the Montana University System. This ruffled quite a few feathers.
Between all of this, I believed, lied the motivation for false flagging me, attempting to destroy my reputation to hurt my political goals. This had happened on multiple occasions in the past, and I had a good relationship with University Police and a decent one with the FBI.
Anyway, there was a string of these events that semester. A threat to shoot up a QSA event was sent to the club, stating it was because they were gay and claiming to be sent by TPUSA, which I was not affiliated with but whose leaders I knew.
Shortly after that, a student named Alexandra (who I am only naming because she was already named by the MSU Exponent, the student newspaper) recieved threats and harassment that identified themselves as from me. https://www.msuexponent.com/fe...
One of these, the Google Form, had a field to enter an affiliated organization, since it was for a "unity" event following the threats to QSA. It was submitted naming an organization I had had no formal relationship with for at least a year.
The Google Form had been sent to me by Rex Wu, a student I had known since shortly before I started at MSU in 2019. He sent it late at night, and I went to bed planning to decide whether I wanted to attend the next day.
When I woke up, I had more messages from Rex, saying that someone had submitted these threats with my name and email (the email verification feature on Google Forms was not enabled), and asking if it was me. It wasn't.
I went to University Police voluntarily. These false flag attempts on me had happened before, but this was the first time I was mirandized. I showed them the email addresses I have, and let them take pictures of those pages on my phone screen.
I wouldn't normally recommend doing this, but: A. I had a good relationship with UPD And B: demonstrating that I didn't own the email addresses the email threat was sent from is valuable and more meaningful the sooner it is
I had actually been playing Hogwarts Legacy at the time, and sent them Steam logs showing this, and that I was earning achievements which meant I was actually actively playing rather than leaving it open for an alibi.
On my way out of the police station, I talked to a lieutenant I knew fairly well. He told me he was fairly confident I had nothing to do with any of this, because it "didn't seem like my MO".
Alexandra filed for a restraining order against me. I got a call from the Sheriff right before my FE exam telling me I needed to come in, but not what for. I was stressed the entire test and rushed through it in half the time. Still passed, built different.
I had to spend my time at the end of my senior year dealing with this. I hired a lawyer, spent a lot of time talking with him, and ended up reaching an agreement to sign a voluntary no contact agreement, because I just wanted to be done with this and focus on school.
Because she filed this, and was granted an emergency protection order before the hearing (can't blame the judge for this one, it's a preponderance standard with no due process by design) my TSA precheck was revoked, and stayed that way until it expired. I couldn't renew.
I'm actually really irritated at the precheck thing because I fly quite a bit and I still haven't gotten around to doing that (+Nexus and Global Entry, same boat). Anyway, that record was sealed, because it looks pretty bad (until someone else fesses up to it all)
The Title IX office got involved around here. I was falling behind in my classes because of the burden of dealing with all this, and because it involved political viewpoint discrimination they ended up getting a couple of my classes to let me work past graduation.
I walked before I had finished my degree. I think I'm actually not on the list of graduates for the semester I officially graduated because of this, so I hope nobody ever tries to verify my education that way.
This was a big deal. I was trying hard to figure out who did this, and Rex lined up a little bit. He had sent me the Google Form right before it was submitted with my name, and he was a bit dull, which lined up with the text of some of the threats.
But I had known him for years! He was my first friend at MSU, since we met before classes. We had tons of mutual friends. We went to the gym together. We were never the closest, but I couldn't imagine he would do this. Other people seemed more likely.
I thought it was a left wing activist, trying to hurt the bill we were working on. Many left wing campus activists hated the bill. I even suggested it was a couple specific people, which I now regret as I know I was wrong. I was flailing a bit with the weight of all this.
Anyway, Rex just pleaded guilty to sending the threats masquerading as being from me and from TPUSA, per the Daily Montanan. Link below. I'm reeling from this, I can't believe it was him, I can't believe this is over after more than 2 years.