Dispute Over Chemistry Grade : Student Gets Probation for Threatening Professor

A Valley College student who threatened to blow up his chemistry professor’s car unless she changed his final grade was sentenced Friday to two years probation and ordered to stay away from the college and the instructor.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge John H. Major also told Craig A. Bolyard, 37, that he must do 24 hours of volunteer work and pay a $100 fine to the state victims’ restitution fund for phoning in two bomb threats to the Van Nuys college shortly after the professor told him he might receive a D in her class.

Bolyard pleaded guilty last month to two misdemeanor counts of making a false bomb threat for reporting to the college’s security office on May 23 that a bomb had been placed under a car belonging to Prof. Karen Timberlake, Deputy Dist. Atty. Vickye Mitchell said.

According to a probation report, Bolyard and Timberlake had argued earlier that day about Bolyard’s performance in a chemistry class. Bolyard wanted a failing grade instead of a D because he believed he could not take the course again unless he failed, the report said. Bolyard eventually earned a C in the class, court documents showed.

Bolyard stormed from the classroom after the argument, breaking the glass in a door he slammed, the report said. He admitted to police that he called in the bomb threats about two hours after the argument, the report said.