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Man gets prison term after threats violate probation

When he made late-night calls to the Schuylkill County courthouse in early October, threatening to shoot schoolchildren if the building wasn't shut down, Todd A. Dohner did more than terrify parents and disrupt county business. He also violated the terms of his probation for an earlier indecent exposure conviction.

On Monday, President Judge William Baldwin revoked the probation and sentenced Dohner, 48, of Pine Grove, to three to nine months in state prison for the violation. The incident happened on July 6, 2012. Dohner pleaded guilty in those cases on March 20, 2013, and Baldwin sentenced him to 24 months of probation.Baldwin on Nov. 3 revoked another 12-month probation sentence Dohner was serving for a charge of harassment stemming from Feb. 16, 2012. But at the time, Dohner was sitting the county jail under $500,000 straight cash bail for making the courthouse calls.Dohner has a history of offenses, some bizarre, in Schuylkill County, dating to 1989.In October 2013, he pleaded guilty to making terroristic threats against school officials if they didn't change the color of school buses from yellow to red. He was sentenced to 23 months in prison, but was released on parole.In the courthouse calls case, Pottsville police on Oct. 3 charged Dohner with two counts of felony terroristic threats, two counts of felony criminal use of a communication facility and two counts of persistent disorderly conduct.The calls were placed on the courthouse voice mail late at night on Oct. 2 and in the early morning hours of Oct. 3.The caller said he was the leader of a "terrorist group" and would have his group shoot students at a school from 100 yards away at 3 p.m. if his demand was not met. The courthouse was closed at about 11 a.m. Police traced the calls to Dohner's cellphone.