Bomb hoax was for girlfriend's honor

Love and honor.

That's what Kenneth W. Smith Jr., a Northeast Philadelphia pizza cook, says prompted him to phone in a bogus tip that his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend was carrying explosives on an outbound plane from Philadelphia last September.

Smith, 26, pleaded guilty Monday to making false reports about the plane threat, charges that could send him to prison for 12 to 18 months.

U.S. District Judge Gene E. K. Pratter scheduled sentencing for April 16.

The Sept. 6 hoax caused authorities to call back a Dallas-bound US Airways plane that had reached Harrisburg, and sent agents and rescue personnel scurrying onto the tarmac. They pulled Smith's target, Christopher Shell, from his seat, led him away in cuffs, and began to unravel the love triangle.

Asked to name his enemies, Shell named Smith. Both had been vying for the same woman, who has not been publicly identified.

Smith won her, then lost in more ways than one.

For more than an hour Monday, he stood before the judge answering routine questions about his background, struggling to hold back tears. He and his lawyer, William Brennan, said they would say more about the crime at his sentencing.

In an interview that aired Friday on the ABC newsmagazine 20/20, Smith said the woman was his coworker at 3 Brothers Pizza & Pasta in Port Richmond. He and Shell, a Texas transplant living in South Philadelphia, had never met but traded nasty text messages.

When the woman ultimately chose Smith, Shell allegedly retaliated by posting a naked photo of her online. Smith sought revenge.

"I wanted him to pay for what he did," Smith said in the interview.

Using a pay phone and a fake name, Smith called airport police and told them Shell was carrying drugs and liquid explosives aboard the flight. Smith said he wanted to inconvenience just Shell, but acknowledged the impact was wider.

His actions, he told the news program, were "completely moronic."

Smith's plea was never in doubt. Agents found him at work the day of the hoax and he confessed, according to an affidavit from Special Agent David L. O'Brien of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

In November, prosecutors filed charges in a document known as an information, generally an indication that a guilty plea is forthcoming.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said Smith's plea deal called for him to reimburse and write letters of apology to each passenger on the flight, and pay the airline and emergency personnel for the cost of the response. The total could top $20,000.

In the end, neither guy got the girl, according to Smith. "I love her with all I have," he said during the interview, but she dumped him anyway.