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The New Jersey teen who pleaded to faking mass shooting calls to Milton High School in 2022 will spend two years in prison after a Santa Rosa Circuit Judge levied the sentence Thursday afternoon.
Brad Parga, an 18-year-old who was arrested nearly a year after the incident in 2023, previously pleaded no contest to one felony count of making a false report of using firearms in a violent manner and one misdemeanor count of interfering with school administration for faking active shooter calls to Milton High.
Although MHS was swatted multiple times beginning in February 2022, Parga was only charged for the calls that occurred on Feb. 14, 2022.
"It's hard to imagine the amount of fear that was instilled in the students of Milton High School when this occurred," Judge Clifton Drake said before levying his sentence. "Being locked in rooms hours on end without food, without bathrooms, urinating in the closet because they had no where else to go, panicked parents who couldn't find their kids -- it was just a horrific day for Milton High School all around."
Before Parga officially submitting his plea this past August, Judge Clifton Drake asked Parga if he understood he was facing up to 15 years in a Florida prison, since the Office of the State Attorney did not offer him a plea deal.
Parga responded in August that he understood and pleaded no contest to the charges.
Following his two-year prison sentence, Parga will serve three years on probation, during which he will have no access to internet. He may also not have any interaction with any educational institution except to enroll in an education institution.
During his sentencing hearing, Parga deflected responsibility to a friend he met online who lives in Australia, saying he never made a call to Milton High School.
However, the prosecutor noted the glaring problem with Parga's story. The ensuing investigation discovered Parga after tracing the phone's IP address to his residence in New Jersey.
The judge was also able to consider the impact statements of several victims, the foremost being the school's principal Tim Short.
"I've seen many things that disrupted school days - storms, power outages, bomb threats, terrorism on 9/11, rumors of weapons on campus," he said during the hearing. "However, on Feb. 14, 2022, Milton High School was disrupted in a way well beyond what teenage students, teachers and staff were prepared to handle.
"Those phone calls evoked panic across the school and the community," he added. "Those phone calls instilled a lingering sense of fear."
The day of the swatting calls, the school's resource officer says anywhere from 40 to 50 armed officers from varying local, state and federal law enforcement agencies descended upon the school, searching for a threat that turned out to be a hoax.
As part of Parga's sentence, he is deemed a youthful offender, according to Drake. That designation will "give access" to certain programs for Parga's rehabilitation that would otherwise not be available.