New Carlisle woman convicted in connection to Navistar shooter ‘joke’ sentenced to house arrest

April Fools text lied about an active shooter.

A New Carlisle woman who was found guilty of inducing panic after texting her sister about an active shooter at Navistar as an “April Fools” prank was sentenced in Clark County this week.

Pamela Sisco, 58, was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest and 40 hours of community service by Judge Richard O’Neill in the Clark County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday.

Sisco also received a yearlong community control term, meaning she can’t leave the state for a year without permission. Violating her term would result in additional sanctions and could also result in a six-month prison sentence, said Clark County Prosecutor Dan Driscoll.

Sisco was not ordered to pay restitution, Driscoll confirmed.

The sentencing comes more than a year after Sisco sent a text message to her sister about an active shooter at the Navistar in Springfield on April 1 last year, according to the affidavit filed in the Clark County Municipal Court. She faced similar charges in that court last year.

Sisco told her sister via text that employees were barricaded in the office at work after an employee who was fired the day before was in the building with a gun, according to court records. Sisco’s sister called the police.

No active shooter was in the building, which Clark County Sheriff’s Office deputies and other law enforcement learned when they responded to the call. Sisco told police then that the texts were part of an “April Fools joke” she was playing on her sister. She told deputies that she made the entire story up and there was no shooter in the building.

“She stated she was playing a joke on her sister for April Fools Day and trying to get her back from last year,” according to the affidavit.

Sisco told deputies that she was sorry for her actions and “never meant for it to go this far,” the affidavit said.

Sisco was found guilty of her felony charge of inducing panic this May, according to Clark County Common Pleas Court records.

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