A former Montgomery County, Maryland, student convicted of threatening to commit an act of mass violence after writing a “manifesto” describing a desire to commit a school shooting will spend one year in prison after he was sentenced Wednesday.
Alex Ye, 19, was sentenced to 10 years, with all but 12 months suspended. In a statement, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said Ye has already served 14 months as of Wednesday.
He will spend a year behind bars as long as he abides by the conditions of his sentence. Upon release, he will serve five years of supervised probation.
Judge Jill Cummins ordered Ye to appear in court every two weeks during his probationary period to meet with her and provide proof that he’s following his probation requirements. There are multiple conditions, including receiving mental health treatment and conducting community service.
Ye is also required to stay away from the schools he mentioned in his writings: Thomas S. Wootton High School and Lakewood Elementary School. He also has to stay off of the social app “Discord.”
Ye was arrested in April 2024 in Rockville after Montgomery County police and the FBI conducted a joint investigation into the 129-page document that authorities described as a manifesto.
Ye’s lawyers had argued the writing was fictional teenage musings protected under the First Amendment.
In securing Ye’s January conviction, prosecutors argued the document detailed the exact strategy to commit school shootings, covering attacks on both a high school and elementary school.
“These are chilling messages,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said during a news conference after the guilty verdict in January. “There are clearly emotional and psychiatric issues that are in play here.”
Other evidence cited during the two-day bench trial proceedings included email exchanges and direct Instagram messages that mirrored the “manifesto.” Those communications were shared with a friend of Ye’s who later alerted authorities.
According to McCarthy, before police were called to investigate Ye, his writings did not include a label stipulating they were fictional. Only after police were alerted did Ye go back into his work and add a fiction label, McCarthy said.
WTOP’s Gaby Arancibia contributed to this report.
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