Connor Chargois
Nearly 10 months after his arrest on Feb. 27, a Saugerties High student who was found in possession of an arsenal after police were tipped off by social media posts which referred to the Columbine killers has admitted his guilt.
Connor Chargois, 18, of 5 Sawyerville Terrace pleaded guilty on Nov. 30 to the felony of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a charge that carries a maximum of seven years in prison. His sentencing before county court Judge Donald A. Williams is scheduled for Feb. 8, 2019.
Back on Feb. 21, after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Parkland, Fla. and on the same day as a public forum on school safety, Chargois took to the messaging app Snapchat, writing that he “env[ied] Eric and Dylan [Harris and Klebold, the Columbine shooters],” that “it must have been so f—ing fun” and that “they had the right f—ing idea.” Within hours of posting, students notified administration, who then brought the troubling messages to the Saugerties Police Department. Detectives, with the assistance of state police and the county DA’s office, determined that Chargois had authored the messages. They interviewed both Chargois and his father, 58-year-old Bruce Chargois; while Connor Chargois admitted writing the Snapchat messaging, he and his father denied that they had access to any weaponry.
But in the ensuing investigation, police seized ammunition of varying calibers, homemade knives, machine-fabricated gun parts, a prototype of a firearm that Connor Chargois admitted he had been manufacturing in his basement, as well as a number of completed homemade firearms in both .22-caliber and 9 mm capacities, authorities said.