Man facing domestic assault charge called in bomb scare to delay court hearing

Kristen Harrison-Oneal

TULSA, OKLAHOMA – A man who falsely reported that a bomb was to be detonated at the Tulsa County Court House was sentenced today in federal court, announced U.S. Attorney Trent Shores.

U.S. District Judge Claire V. Eagan sentenced Randy Paul Shelby, 41, of Sand Springs, to 12 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release for reporting false information about bombs in a courthouse.

“Randy Shelby didn’t want to face the consequences for his alleged acts of domestic abuse. So, he phoned in a bomb threat to stop the related court proceeding at the Tulsa County Courthouse. He then made a bad situation worse when he tried to frame another man as the potential bomber,” said U.S. Attorney Trent Shores. “This series of incredibly bad and criminal choices landed Shelby in federal court where today he learned that he will spend the next 12 months in federal prison. I commend the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Raley, the Tulsa Police Department and the FBI in this matter.”

On the evening of July 7, 2020, an unidentified caller contacted the Tulsa Police Department’s non-emergency number at 11:12 pm stating that a member of the “Bandidos” motorcycle club had been making bombs. The caller further stated that he had been to the man’s house where he saw the bombs. He advised police that the man planned to detonate a bomb at the Tulsa County Courthouse on July 8, 2020, at 11 am. At his plea hearing in November, Shelby stated that he was the caller, knew the information he had provided to authorities was false, and understood it was wrong and illegal to make a hoax bomb threat.


According to court documents, Shelby also made a second anonymous call to the Tulsa Police Department’s non-emergency number at 12:59 am on July 8, 2020, stating that he had seen a person sitting in a white pickup showing others a PVC pipe with caps on both ends and what looked like a fuse. Shelby stated that it looked like a bomb and described the man in the pickup.

During the course of the investigation, officers discovered that Shelby had made the hoax calls and ascertained he did so to stop a proceeding related to a domestic violence protective order issued against the defendant. The victim was scheduled to appear at the courthouse the morning July 8, 2020.

The FBI and Tulsa Police Department conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert T. Raley prosecuted the case. AUSA Raley is the National Security Anti-Terrorism (ATAC) Prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Oklahoma.

You appear to be using an ad blocker

Shore News Network is a free website that does not use paywalls or charge for access to original, breaking news content. In order to provide this free service, we rely on advertisements. Please support our journalism by disabling your ad blocker for this website.