Transgendered couple say Pitt threat investigators questioned them
By Bill Vidonic, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, April 14, 2012

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_791394.html

A transgendered Cambria County couple said federal agents investigating the ongoing bomb threats at the University of Pittsburgh questioned them for nearly three hours this week, and the couple has been ordered to appear in front of a federal grand jury Tuesday.

"We have absolutely nothing to do with (the threats) except for wanting the people who are making the threats caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said Katherine Anne McCloskey, 55, of Jackson. "Whoever is doing this is a lunatic."

McCloskey, who was born a man but lives as a woman, and partner Seamus Johnston, 22, who was born female but lives as a male and is undergoing hormone treatments, denied any involvement with the bomb threats. They said they will appear before the grand jury Tuesday, and will surrender two computers.

For second time, FBI seizes records in Pitt bomb threat probe


By Liz Navratil / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette / April 21, 2012 4:47 pm


http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/fbi-seizes-records-in-bomb-probe-632413/


A Cambria County couple intertwined in the University of Pittsburgh bomb threat investigation said FBI agents and police officers with a search warrant seized items from their home for a second time this week, taking handwritten notes, educational records, drafts of a lawsuit and a cell phone on Friday.

Seamus Johnston, 22, said he was chatting on the phone with a friend when more than a half-dozen investigators arrived at the couple's Jackson home and he thought, "Not again, not again, please God."

I wonder if this wasn't faked as a way to attack them because they may be seeking a suit due to mr Johnson having been kicked out of college there?

Transgender Student Fights FBI Over Bomb Threat Accusation
Seamus Johnston says the University of Pittsburgh is retaliating for a months-long debate over trans rights at Pitt.
By Diane Anderson-Minshall

http://www.advocate.com/Crime/Transgender_Student_Fights_FBI_Over_Bomb_Threat_Accusation/

Seamus Johnston and Katherine McCloskey make an unlikely pair. The two met five years ago when Johnston was 18. It was, he says, "Basically love at first sight." Now married, the rather baby-faced Johnston and his wife have found themselves at the center of a national FBI investigation that has upended their lives.

Who they are, he says, is as much to do with the cloud of suspicion they're under, as what the federal authorities think they've done. Both Johnston and McCloskey are transgender, both having begun transition after they met. And McCloskey is 34 years older than her college-aged husband.

 We got the computers back ands cell phones back. What we will never get back is our privacy. Instant recognition is not exactly what a MTF 3 weeks into taking hormones wants. People have been very good in person and the press has been great. T%he online bashing has been rather horrible. What can one expect? I doubt I will ever get over waking up to a gun soved in my face or being dragged naked out of the bath tube given 30 seconds to dress and then being thrown outside. My husband was not allowed back in to urinate. The fight goes on. More coming soon.

Dr.Katherine Anne McCloskey, Ph.D. Better known as Red Katie Anne   

Hi Katie Anne,

Glad to hear you've gotten your computers and cell phones back, sorry about what you've gone through!

Zythyra

 Thanks, Zythyra,

Pitt hates the idea of a class action suit on behalf of trans-folks system wide. There are 5 campuses. I doubt the
Pitt administrators sent more than a few of the threats, but they milked everyone for all it was worth. The students are gone and thus so are the witnesses.  I will be filing charges next week against the U.S. Attorneys and FBI agents involved.

A woman whom I never met came up to Seamus and I on the street last Tuesday. She said we were her heroes and that we had inspired hundreds of thousands. "We are scared of government and you are not," she said. I am not brave just Irish. I just don't have a normal fear mechanism.  This has gotten more than a few of my friends killed. However, as the "Pittsburgh Kid" Billy Conn once said, "What's the use of being Irish if you can't be dumb?"  Billy Conn Avenue runs through the Pitt-Oakland campus. I wonder do the Pitt administrators ever think of that   

In Solidarity,

Red Katie Anne