Local News in Brief : 3-Year Sentence in False Bomb Threat

A man who claimed to have a bomb while taking a hostage in a Century City high-rise last May, forcing the evacuation of 100 people, has been sentenced to three years in state prison.

Santa Monica Superior Court Judge David Perez imposed the sentence on Renard Z. Jones, 34, who pleaded guilty to one count each of false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon and making a false bomb threat.

Jones was declared mentally incompetent last September and was committed to a state hospital, but authorities later ruled that he had regained his mental faculties and the case against him proceeded.

The incident began last May 4 when Jones arrived at the Century City office of an attorney in the Fox Plaza Building complaining about legal work being done for him. The attorney was not in his 26th-floor office at the time, and Jones, claiming to have a gun, then took a legal secretary hostage. After Jones boasted that he was also armed with a bomb, police evacuated the 25th, 26th and 27th floors.

An eight-hour standoff ended when police blew the door off of the firm’s offices, freed the secretary and arrested Jones. No bomb or gun was found.