Judge sentences Bay to 12 years in Landstown bomb plot

VIRGINIA BEACH

A usually stoic Philip Bay let out a sound of relief.

At 19, the former Landstown High School student potentially faced a life sentence for a planned massacre on Virginia Beach classmates in April 2009.

Commonwealth's Attorney Harvey Bryant had just asked for at least two decades behind bars.

After about an hour of testimony Wednesday, Judge William R. "Buster" O'Brien sentenced Bay to a dozen years. He'll spend two of those in a juvenile facility and transfer to a state prison at age 21. O'Brien sentenced Bay to a total of 68 years on 18 weapons, terrorism and conspiracy convictions, but he suspended most of the time.

Bay's attorney, James Broccoletti, said both he and his client were pleased.

Bryant had argued that Bay could offend again and should stay locked up until he turns 40. Including time already served, Bay will be out before his 30th birthday.

O'Brien called the sentence one of the most difficult decisions he's had to make on the bench. Because Bay was a juvenile at the time of the offense, the judge alone, and no jury, considered the sentence.

"The offense here is absolutely horrendous," O'Brien said. Not once, the judge noted before handing down the sentence, did Bay say he never would have carried out his plan. "Unless we put Mr. Bay away for life, there's always that threat."

Officials have said the attack was thwarted when Bay's ex-conspirator went to police.

A jury in November found Bay guilty on each of the felonies he was charged with, rejecting the defense's claim that he was legally insane and belonged in a mental hospital.

Prosecutors said Bay, though troubled and in need of help, was a calculating manipulator motivated by hate, revenge and a desire for notoriety.

In hours of homemade video and throughout hundreds of pages of journal entries, Bay plotted the details of his attack and showed off his stockpile of Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs. He wanted to kill at least 30 people at Landstown. Then he would turn a sawed-off shotgun he called Magdalena on himself.

Bay had called it "a massacre for the ages."

"The main problem was his desire that everyone know who Philip Bay is," said Bryant, the prosecutor. "I don't know if, in his mind, he has achieved that level or not. I won't be surprised if we hear from Philip Bay again."

He read from Bay's journals on Wednesday. "People will be reading about the kid who played the harpsichord and never bothered anyone who suddenly picked up a high powered rifle," Bay wrote in September 2007. "Ha ha. I am a genius! ... Ah this is going to be so awesome!"

"I just think about it all the time," he wrote in November 2008. "What the world will think when I'm gone. How many followers I'll have. How many kids will be dying (no pun intended) to be like me. I'm going to be famous in a morbid kind of way."

During trial, Broccoletti called those exhibits "the face of insanity, the voice of insanity." Three mental health experts testified that Bay suffered from untreated mental illness and that family problems and social issues had created the perfect storm that was Bay's plot.

"My arrest and coming to jail was probably the best thing that ever happened to me," Bay told the judge on Wednesday. It was the first time he'd spoken in court.

Bay said he knew he wasn't completely rehabilitated but that he hardly recognized the ranting, rambling teenager in the videos and journals. Three witnesses testified that they'd seen a marked difference in Bay since his arrest.

"There's really nothing that I can say... that will ever be able to excuse my actions," Bay said.

Landstown Principal Brian Baxter testified during sentencing that media coverage had created "an atmosphere of fear and anxiety" at the school. Parents kept kids off buses. One student brought a knife to school out of fear.

And on April 20, 2009 - when the attack was to have taken place - some 850 students did not show up for classes, Baxter said. Forty school system employees were pulled from their jobs to walk the halls that day. Landstown got two extra security officers, and Baxter had to assign two to three people to handle media inquiries.

Bay's mother, who spoke to reporters after the sentencing, said she knew instinctively that her son had changed.

"He's definitely gained back my trust," Lisa Bay said. "I don't believe he has pulled the wool over my eyes."

Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5131, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com