Derrick Dawon Burns
Derrick Dawon Burns

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) — A man accused of mailing threats of beheadings, bombings and other violence to SIU-Carbondale is now facing fewer federal counts than when he was first charged.

21-year-old Derrick Dawon Burns of Chicago is indicted on four felony counts of willfully making a bomb threat. Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

The indictment replaces a criminal complaint filed in September that accused Burns of the four bomb-threat counts as well as four counts of making a threatening communication.

Investigators allege that Burns sent threatening mailings over a yearlong span in 2012 and 2013, warning that he would carry out rapes, bombings and beheadings targeting SIU.

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