Marietta Man Faked Terror Plot

A Marietta man was sentenced to 34 months in prison Monday for lying to federal investigators about an imaginary terrorist plot to bomb an airliner.

Henry Guy Jones, 51, also had to pay a $100 special assessment and will face three years of supervision after his release from prison.

“The defendant diverted much-needed federal resources dedicated to address true threats of terrorism to investigate his web of lies,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a news release.

Jones was indicted Nov. 21 and pleaded guilty Jan. 5 in U.S. District Court in Atlanta to making false statements to federal agents.

“Lying to federal agents has serious consequences,” Yates said, “particularly when the lies create the impression that terrorists were taking very real steps to create a destructive device (that) could be used on board a commercial airplane.”

Around Feb. 9, 2010, Jones contacted the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and said two Jordanians and an American were plotting to attack a commercial airplane with a device that would explode or release poison, a toxic substance or something that would burn.

Jones said the three men had hired him to build the device. He repeated the story several times to the FBI as well.

Jones kept his fiction going through June 2010, including falsifying evidence that the three men were real and building a prototype of the device and giving it to the FBI.

He finally admitted that he had lied about everything. There were no terrorists, no terror plot and no contract to build a destructive device.

The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office, Brian Lamkin, said the bureau relies on information from the public, and it usually comes from people trying to help keep the country secure.

“Occasionally, for varying motives, the FBI is engaged by individuals who choose to fabricate stories that not only waste valuable investigative resources, but can have far-reaching implications if that information were acted on," Lamkin said. "The FBI cannot and will not tolerate such incidents.”

Jones, who had been released on $10,000 bond March 13 and listed an address on Bottle Brush Court in Snellville as his home, immediately had his bond revoked Monday and was placed in the custody of U.S. marshals en route to prison.