Former St. Thomas student Ray Ghansham Persaud, 22, was sentenced Tuesday to one year and one day in prison for calling a bomb threat into the university on Sept. 17, 2019.

Persaud pleaded guilty in September 2020 to calling in one of three 2019 bomb threats — he also was accused of calling on April 17 and Aug. 20 — and was sentenced on one count of “using an instrumentality of interstate commerce to maliciously make a threat to damage and destroy any building, by means of explosives.”

He said he called in the threat because he didn’t have his homework completed and was unprepared for class, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Minnesota said in a statement, citing Persaud’s guilty plea and court documents.

“The bomb threats caused substantial fear and disruption to the University, including the evacuation of campus buildings and a childcare center, re-routing of traffic on nearby streets, and a full response by the University’s Public Safety personnel,” the statement said.

Following the prison sentence, Persaud must also serve two years of supervised release.

Persaud was sentenced by Judge Eric C. Tostrud following an investigation by the FBI and the St. Paul Police Department.

Angeline Terry can be reached at terr2351@stthomas.edu.