HOBOKEN — The lawyer for a former graduate student arrested for allegedly threatening to burn down a building on the Stevens Institute of Technology campus says the charge has been reduced and his client has agreed to return to his native China. Zhai Tiantian, a former graduate student at Stevens, was arrested April 15 and faced a charge of...
A 2003 file photo of the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.HOBOKEN — The lawyer for a former graduate student arrested for allegedly threatening to burn down a building on the Stevens Institute of Technology campus says the charge has been reduced and his client has agreed to return to his native China.
Zhai Tiantian, a former graduate student at Stevens, was arrested April 15 and faced a charge of making a terroristic threat.
Zhai's attorney, Ming Hai, said today that a judge has reduced it to a disorderly persons offense.
The terroristic threat charge can refer to a range of verbal threats. Some Chinese media outlets initially reported that Zhai was arrested for allegedly being a terrorist.
Zhai remains in immigration detention.
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