Man Jailed Over 'Sadistic' Threats To Niles Officials, Schoolchildren

SKOKIE, IL — A judge ordered a man accused of communicating a series of violent threats to police and village officials in Niles to be detained while awaiting trial.

Adam Provost, 31, made a series of violent threats against a Niles police detective early last month before mailing hoax anthrax to the department's headquarters and placing a threatening call to the executive assistant of Mayor George Alpogianis on Oct. 16, according to police and prosecutors.

"He indicated repeatedly that he was going to rape the mayor," Assistant State's Attorney Amelia Linman said Thursday at a detention hearing.

That same day, a deputy chief of the Niles Police Department got a voicemail indicating that there was a chemical weapon at Clarence E. Culver School, 6901 W. Oakton St., the prosecutor said.

"[Provost] used phrases like 'bioterrorism,' 'chemical weapons,' 'suicide attempts,' 'suicide by cop,'" Linman said, "as well as a threat to rape the deputy chief's mother."

Also that day, Provost is accused of lodging a threat to the school via a voicemail left with the police officer assigned to Niles Elementary School District 71.

"The school resource officer received a voicemail from the same number indicating he was calling in threats to rape and murder the children at the school and was unsure if the school resource officer had received the message," Linman said. "The defendant provided his phone number and asked for a call back."

All of the threats were allegedly called in from the same number, which police said they traced back to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Provost, who has been diagnosed with a mental illness that includes paranoid fixations, relocated to Iowa from the Niles area in January, Linman said.

Voicemails Provost left with Niles police include a threat to kill the "entire department," claims that they had tortured his family and threats to torture police "for sport" and because he needed "training targets," according to the prosecutor.

Provost has been charged with two counts of threatening a public official, a detainable class 3 felony, over the threats to the mayor and police. He is also charged with three counts of disorderly conduct, a non-detainable class 4 felony, over the threats to the school and a letter with fake anthrax in it that arrived at the Niles Police Department in the mail on Oct. 11.

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At his initial court appearance Thursday in Skokie, he told the judge he understood the charges against him, asking only if anyone had actually found any chemical weapons at the school.

His attorney, Assistant Public Defender Vanessa Ficaro, argued that the evidence against him was circumstantial in nature.

"No harm did come to either the police department or to the schoolchildren there in Niles," Ficaro said.

Before granting the prosecution's petition to order Provost detained while awaiting trial, Associate Judge Anthony Calabrese said he believed Provost posed a real and present threat to the community.

Calabrese said the threats alleged were clearly intended to strike fear into the community, highlighting the "the wide variety of threats and allegations made by the defendant, the disturbing nature of the allegations that are made," to city and police officials, "some of a sexual nature, some of a violent nature — mostly of a sadistic nature."

Provost is due back in court to be indicted on Nov. 30.