Fed up with scammers, man returns call, makes threat

Fed up with calls from scammers, a 51-year-old Port Washington man thought he was calling the bad guys back when he made a bomb threat last week.

Instead, he reached a Grafton woman whose phone number was apparently spoofed, or stolen by scammers to disguise their number. She, in turn, called police, who evacuated her townhouse and those adjacent to it while a bomb squad searched for explosives.

Steven M. Gonyer is now charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with one felony count of creating a bomb scare.

According to the criminal complaint, the woman called police at about 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 17, to report that she had just received a call from a man later identified as Gonyer who asked, ‘Who are you?’”

The woman said she asked the same question of Gonyer, who then said, ‘I planted a bomb in your building,’” the complaint states.

Authorities evacuated the woman’s townhouse on Bur Oak Lane and three adjacent homes and called the Milwaukee Bomb Squad. No explosive devices were found and residents were allowed to return to their homes after about two hours, Capt. Emmett Grissom of the Grafton Police Department said. 

When questioned by police, Gonyer said he receives several cell phone calls a day from people telling him his security has been breached and that he is wanted by authorities. When he received one of those calls on Sept. 17, he returned it and made the bomb threat, adding that he was only joking, according to the complaint. 

Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain set Gonyer’s bail at a $5,000 signature bond and ordered him not to have contact with the Grafton woman. 

Creating a bomb scare is punishable by a maximum $10,000 fine, one-and-a-half years in prison and two years of extended supervision.