Former Oroville resident gets home detention sentence for making mail bomb and threats to ex-Presidents

Kao Xiong. | 

A former resident of Oroville, Calif. was sentenced yesterday at U.S. District Court in Sacramento after entering a guilty plea on January 3, 2019 to making various threats via the U.S. Postal Service.

Kao Xiong, 34, currently a resident of Saint Paul, Minnesota, was sentenced to time served plus five months of home detention and three years of supervised release for making false bomb threats. Xiong pleaded guilty to mailing approximately 150 letters Xiong mailed between January and December 2017, containing false information about bombings and assassinations. 

Although the U.S. Postal Service intercepted many of the letters, others were delivered to the intended recipients who were located across the United States, including FBI offices, an airport, a mall, and the current and former presidents of the United States including George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama. One letter was received by a Sunnyvale, Calif. company informing the company that Xiong and others were going to bomb the location. The bomb threat was reported to the Sunnyvale Police Department who responded to the scene to investigate and ultimately reported the incident to the FBI.

Xiong was arrested on December 22, 2017, and remained in custody until May 23, 2018, which is approximately 153 days.