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Ex-USF Teacher Charged With Making Red Cross Bomb Threat

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 10, 2007

Updated: 12/11/2007 07:10 am

ST. PETERSBURG - A former University of South Florida geography instructor was arrested on charges he made bomb threats against the American Red Cross, which he blamed for failing to pay his medical bills during a relief effort in Thailand.

Henry Anthony Aruffo

Henry Anthony Aruffo, 58, arrested Friday evening, was being held at Pinellas County Jail, with bail set at $50,000. He is charged with threatening to detonate a destructive device.

Aruffo was in Thailand when an earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26, 2004, set off a series of tsunamis that killed more than 225,000 people in 11 countries. It was considered among the world's worst natural disasters. Aruffo dove off the shores of Phuket to help retrieve bodies.

In a letter USF reprinted in a January 2005 news release, Aruffo gave the university an update on the recovery effort, what he had done and how it was affecting him.

"I have a massive ear infection today. 48 hours after retrieving bodies from fetid water," he wrote. "After diving, I scrubbed my body with bleach for an hour after getting out of the water – I even gargled with diluted bleach. The water was high in bacteria. I should have known it was dangerous but I was only diving in standard equipment and not any specialized 'body safe' suit."

Speaking from the Pinellas County Jail on Monday, Aruffo said he got dengue fever twice, contracted hepatitis C, and returned to the United State in January with post-traumatic stress syndrome, the latter being the result of the horror he witnessed.

He also described himself as suicidal and said he was taking anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medication along with a sedative. St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said Aruffo claimed to have incurred $65,000 in medical bills.

The real issue, Aruffo said, was not so much medical bills as the failure of the Red Cross to adequately distribute millions of dollars Americans donated for tsunami relief. He planned to protest outside the Red Cross in St. Petersburg on Dec. 26, the anniversary of the tsunami, he said.

Court records unsealed Monday state that Aruffo was seen photographing the building at 818 Fourth St. N. on Nov. 29. Asked what he was doing, he said "he was going to blow the building up on Dec. 26,'' a criminal affidavit states.

When a detective visited him later, Aruffo told him he planned to chain himself to the building during the protest, the documents state. After the detective left, Aruffo called the American Red Cross in Washington, complained about the tsunami money he was owed, and threatened to blow up the St. Petersburg chapter, the documents state.

Speaking from the jail, Aruffo said he never made a bomb threat.

"I never said bomb. I never said blast. I never said kill. I would never kill anyone," he said. "Two years of living around that and seeing that,'' he said, referring to the disaster's aftermath, "it catches up with you sometime. But to blow somebody up? Me? I'm not that kind of person."

Aruffo was a member of USF's adjunct faculty in 1995 and later was a visiting instructor, according to the university. He last worked for USF in 2003, a university spokesman said.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 415-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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