Former Boeing employee convicted of sending threatening e-mails

A former Boeing employee was convicted Friday in federal court of 19 felonies for sending threatening e-mails to officials at Boeing, Shell Oil and Chevron Oil companies, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Gino Augustus Turrella, 47, of Des Moines, faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and up to 10 years following a five-day jury trial before U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle.

According to the indictment and other court documents, Turrella created e-mail accounts in the names of a former Boeing supervisor and a former co-worker from another company and then sent threats to other officials. He was convicted of, among other crimes, identity theft and possession of a weapon in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Prosecutors allege Turrella, a machinist, began making threats after he was disciplined by Boeing in 2004 for failing to comply with some of the manufacturer's specifications for a critical part that attaches an airplane's wings to the fuselage.

Turrella was given a short suspension for his lapse at work, the second within several weeks. Shortly after he returned, according to court documents, threatening graffiti began appearing in the men's restroom in the shop. Several months later, the supervisor responsible for the discipline received a series of blue inter-company envelopes containing a single bullet.

Turrella was suspected, and he was suspended indefinitely and eventually fired in 2005. Two years later, prosecutors say he began sending a series of threatening e-mails, some to a co-worker at his new employer who had bullied him.

In the e-mails, Turrella — who prosecutors say owned more than 100 firearms — threatened to "shoot every employee I see" and said he would strap himself with explosives and detonate himself "in order to cause maximum death and destruction in the workplace."

In an e-mail to Shell Oil's Anacortes refinery in 2008, the jury found, Turrella sent and e-mail saying he has planted a bomb. The e-mails were sent via the wireless network at the King County Library System, investigators found.

Prosecutors were able to show that Turrella's laptop contained evidence linking it to the bogus e-mail accounts, and that Turrella was logged on to the wireless network at library at the time they were sent.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com