Kenneth Leong, 21, is led from the Science Center after he stormed into an

A quick perusal of "In the News" section on thefacebook.com confirms that, if not everyone, then many at Harvard get Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes of fame. But while these items usually link to games won, stunts pulled or pedestrian quotes as random student X, a different subset of newsmakers gain their notoriety through, well, more notorious means.

Their names are ripped from the police blotter and plastered across the front page under sober shots of Middlesex County Courthouse arraignments. Their misfortune is alternatively giggled at by strangers over dining-hall fare and lamented by family and friends. These Harvard criminals come to us from the student body, the broader Harvard community of faculty and staff and, sometimes, the wild and dangerous world that lies beyond our Ivied walls.

Some are remembered by name—who didn’t hear about the embezzling duo of Pomey and Gomes; others by their exploits—the “Alexander the Great bomber” or the “pot-dealing chef.” But those memories are incomplete, with few following closely what transpired in the aftermath of the initial shocking headlines.

Described inside are just some of these high-profile crimes and criminals, along with what could be gleaned from court records and interviews about their post-newsmaking careers. Their paths have taken them as far from Harvard as Virginia Commonwealth University and a state-run mental health lockup, while others returned to jobs and classes at Harvard.

All, though, are part of the amalgam of shared experiences and memories that the Class of 2004 collectively holds.

Bomb Threat Disrupted Exam

It’s 40 minutes into the final exam of the popular Core, Literature and Arts B-21, “Images of Alexander the Great,” and 500 eyes focus on a slide of the course’s hero slaying the Persian Emperor Darius, displayed at the front of the Science Center B lecture hall.

The lights are low and few people notice a slightly disheveled figure edge his way down to the front row. The course head, Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archeology David G. Mitten, would later tell The Crimson that he assumed the man was a student late for the January 18, 2001 exam.

Suddenly the man reaches into his satchel, takes out a brick and hurls it at the blackboard. All 500 eyes shoot down as he announces his name and his intention: he is “Romanticus;” he has a bomb; he declares “war on the [expletive] United States of America;” and if anyone moves, they are all going to die.

According to police reports, the man was not Romanticus, but Kenneth Leong of Tierrasanta, Calif., a 21-year-old drifter with a history of mental problems. He did not have a bomb.

His threat though, triggered a mass stampede for the door, the evacuation of the Science Center, a mace-drenched arrest and, ultimately, a rare course-wide February makeup final. For Leong, the threat meant a set of charges that could have brought him significant jail time—albeit charges that were never prosecuted. Three-and-a-half years later, as the last students from “Images of Alexander” graduate, the criminal justice system has lost track of Leong.

The stampede for the door on that January day was led by a group of students sitting near the back of the hall. Today, Mitten remembers the scene: “The books, blue-books, flip-flops, bottles of Gatorade, etc. left in Science Center B just where everyone abandoned them instantly when someone yelled, ‘Run like hell!’ It was like Pompeii!”

Left behind with Leong were Mitten, a teaching fellow and a senior, all of whom stayed until police arrived minutes later. Leong first demanded a cell-phone to call the police, but when none of those present had one to offer, he walked back into the middle of the auditorium and began sipping a departed student’s soda, declaring his intention to wait until police arrived.

Within ten minutes the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) and Cambridge Police Department were on the scene, cordoning off the Science Center. Leong struggled when officers who had entered the lecture hall tried to arrest him, and he was subdued with mace.