A man accused of sending out emailed threats to commit a mass shooting at Shoal Creek Elementary School in Carmel Mountain Ranch was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on a felony count of making criminal threats.
Lee Lor, 39, is accused of sending hundreds of separate emails over the course of several months stating he would commit a shooting at the school, one of which was ultimately received in December 2023.
According to preliminary hearing testimony, none of the emails were sent directly to the school. Instead, the messages were allegedly sent out as replies to numerous spam emails Lor received.
One of the emails he allegedly sent landed in the spam folder of a woman in Beverly Hills, who alerted police. Lor was arrested, and the ensuing police investigation revealed that he lived less than a mile from the school.
In October, San Diego Superior Court Judge Aaron Katz dismissed the charge against Lor, ruling that the law requires the threat be specific toward the person allegedly threatened.
At that time, the charged victims in the case were Lor’s neighbors. Prosecutors argued the alleged threat regarding the school originated out of the defendant’s belief that his neighbors were angered by him smoking outside his home and that he sent the threat because he mistakenly believed the neighbors had children attending Shoal Creek Elementary.
Prosecutors re-filed the charge against Lor two weeks after Katz dismissed the count and this time named Shoal Creek’s principal, Harmeena Omoto, as the victim.
Omoto took the stand last week to describe the day the threat was received and the police presence that was brought to the campus as a result.
Omoto said that since Dec. 1, 2023, the school has become “more diligent in monitoring who is coming into our campus” and has also raised the height of the fencing surrounding the school.
Through tears, Omoto described her fears after Lor was released from custody last fall when his charges were dismissed.
“I couldn’t do anything about it, and my concerns were for the safety of myself, the students, the parents and our community,” she said. Lor was re-arrested two weeks later when the charges were re-filed.
Lor’s defense attorney, Deputy Public Defender Lucas Hirsty, asked Superior Court Judge Peter Deddeh to dismiss the criminal threats charge because his client’s emails did not directly name Omoto or any other Shoal Creek staff members. Hirsty argued his client’s pattern of emailing replies to spam messages demonstrated his client didn’t intend to carry out any such threat or expected anyone associated with the school to actually see the messages.
Hirsty said the emails were Lor’s way of “ranting into the ether” as a way of dealing with personal issues. He also argued that Lor has no prior criminal history, possesses no firearms, and did not commit any criminal offenses after he was released from custody last fall.
“He’s very clearly moved past this and understands that his behavior was unacceptable,” Hirsty said.
Deputy District Attorney Savanah Howe said it wasn’t relevant whether Lor intended to carry out the threat, only that the victims believed the threat was legitimate. The prosecutor said that though Lor allegedly only named the school in his emails, Omoto and anyone else who attended the school could be considered victims under the law.
Howe also argued that Lor knew the messages would eventually be received and taken seriously, because he had sent out similar emails to his prior employer six months before the school shooting threats, leading to him losing his job.
On Tuesday morning, Deddeh ordered Lor to stand trial on the criminal threats count. Lor had been held in custody without bail, but Deddeh set bail at $250,000 on Tuesday, though Hirsty said Lor and his family would likely be unable to pay that amount.
