Gregory A. White, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced today that Dr. Ramani Sri Pilla, age 41, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was sentenced by United States District Judge David D. Dowd to six (6) months imprisonment, followed by two (2) years supervised release, following her plea of guilty to making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the federal government in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001.

Dr. Pilla, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at Case Western Reserve University (“CWRU”), perpetrated a hoax against the University by falsely reporting to the FBI that she had been the victim of threatening hate mail and that she suspected three of her colleagues of delivering the letters to her. She told the FBI that between August 2006 and February 28, 2007, she received four such letters and that her colleagues were motivated to send them to her because of her ethnic origin and her gender. She told the FBI she believed the senders of the hate mail were angry at her for (1) making a complaint to a CWRU hotline alleging discrimination and (2) filing a compliant with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against CWRU alleging discrimination.

In addition, Dr. Pilla filed a complaint in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on or about January 25, 2007 seeking a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief and alleging that CWRU had not “taken every reasonable action necessary to protect her life, health, and safety” in response to the threatening letters she claimed to have received.

As a result of Dr. Pilla’s false accusations, CWRU and the FBI conducted an investigation. The cost of the investigation, along with CWRU’s administrative costs in responding to the false reports, totaled approximately $66,000. Judge Dowd ordered Pilla to pay restitution in that amount to CWRU, the FBI and the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ann C. Rowland following investigation by the FBI and the CWRU Police Department.