BROCKTON, Mass.—A former student convicted of plotting to carry out a Columbine-style attack at a suburban high school was sentenced Tuesday to nine months in prison.
Joseph Nee, 21, was convicted last week of conspiracy to commit murder, but acquitted of two other charges. He had faced up to 20 years in prison.
Nee’s attorney said the plan by four Marshfield High School students, who called themselves NBK—”Natural Born Killers”—was never a real threat, but prosecutors rejected that argument.
Three of the students, including Nee, went to police in 2004. They alleged that the fourth, Tobin Kerns, was planning to kill students and teachers in an attack similar to the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado.
Authorities uncovered a hit list of students, school officials and police officers, hand-drawn maps of the school and other material.
Kerns was arrested immediately, but he accused Nee—whose father, Thomas, is president of the Boston police union—of being the mastermind.
Nee was charged a month later as a co-conspirator, and prosecutors said the two were equal partners in planning the attack. The other two teens were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony.
Kerns was convicted in 2006 of conspiracy to commit murder and threatening to use deadly weapons. He is serving a 10-month sentence.
“Obviously, being his parents, we’re heartbroken,” father Thomas Nee said after the sentencing.
Nee’s attorney, Thomas Drechsler, asked Judge Charles Grabau to spare Nee any additional jail time.
“My client did go to police, and Kerns didn’t. I felt that he should have gotten a more lenient sentence,” Drechsler said. He said he plans to appeal the conviction.
Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz said both men participated in the plot.
“The fact that an individual at some point decided to come forward is a good thing, but when … you review all the evidence, I think you would agree with us, as the judge agreed with us, that (Nee) was a conspirator to commit mass murder,” Cruz said.
Because he was jailed for three months after his arrest, Nee will have to serve another six months, followed by two years of probation.
