 "Photo: May-Ying Lam; The Daily Texan")
A former UT student arrested for bringing a handgun to campus will serve no prison time and may have his case dismissed after one year.
Jason Liao, 21, pleaded no contest Wednesday in a Travis County courtroom to a misdemeaner charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon.
In a deal with prosecutors, the misdemeanor charge will be dropped if Liao completes community service and one- year probation. Under the terms of the plea bargain, Liao is banned from campus.
“This kid’s never been accused of hurting anybody or making a threat to anyone,” said Liao’s attorney, Brian Roark, immediately after Liao signed the plea.
Liao was originally charged with carrying a weapon in a prohibited area, a third-degree felony with a maximum sentence of 10 years. But last year, prosecutors reduced the charge to a misdemeanor.
County and district prosecutors did not return requests for comment on the charge reduction or the plea bargain by press time.
Liao was arrested April 15 by the UT Police Department, which received an anonymous tip that he was carrying a handgun on campus and making threatening remarks.
The tip pointed police to two witnesses who said they had seen Liao, then an engineering sophomore, with a gun on campus. They also spoke to Liao’s roommate, who said Liao had stolen the gun from him.
“He brought a weapon to campus. That’s what we went on — not necessarily that he was a threat,” said Detective Michael Riojas, one of the officers who arrested Liao.
Roark said Liao never admitted to carrying a gun on campus.
Biology junior Loan Trinh, one of the witnesses police spoke to, said Liao showed an unloaded gun in a duffel bag to her and her boyfriend in her Jester Center dorm room.
“He just kind of opened it, and I said, ‘whoa.’ It shocked me, but I wasn’t scared,” she said.
Trinh said she didn’t know Liao well herself but that she hadn’t felt threatened by him. She said media coverage of the arrest “got a little crazy.”
If Liao fulfills the terms of his probation, the misdemeanor charge will be dropped and will not appear on his criminal record, according to the terms of the plea bargain.
Liao, who is now working and not in school, referred all questions about his case to Roark.
Roark said Liao had been unfairly profiled because he is Asian-American and was arrested one year after a South Korean student killed 32 people and himself at Virginia Tech.
“He never made a threat to anyone,” Roark said.
Roark said a counselor evaluated Liao after his arrest and recommended he return to school, but the University insisted that he be banned.
Jason Thibodeaux, the assistant director of UT Student Judicial Services, said all information about student disciplinary matters is confidential.
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