VERO BEACH — Schoolmates of one of two teenagers accused of making bomb threats to Vero Beach High School have been writing letters of support for the accused.

Taren Lee Stage, 17, of the 1100 block of 39th Avenue Southwest was arrested in late April on charges of making six false bomb reports to the high school. The threats repeatedly forced evacuation of hundreds of students and staff during school hours from March to April.

The investigation is continuing.

“There are numerous leads,” said sheriff’s spokesman Deputy Jeff Luther, which could lead to an additional arrest, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

The State Attorney’s Office charged Stage as an adult. He has pled not guilty.

“I got in a bad situation and I did what I had to do,” he said in a phone interview Tuesday. “I was new to Vero Beach High School and became friends with the wrong people.

“I usually give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove wrong,” he said.

Meanwhile, some of his friends and a bus driver have been mailing letters about the high school sophomore to the courts.

“I know him like the back of my hand,” wrote his girlfriend of two years, Megan DeBello. “He would never do something this stupid which would ruin his life.

“He wanted to be a police officer,” she wrote.

Her letter is one of seven letters mailed. The letters, mostly handwritten on notebook paper, endorse Stage and grapple for an explanation for what happened.

Stage rode a school bus driven by Christopher Kashary, of Sebastian.

“It is my understanding that his trouble was that he was guilty by association,” Kashary wrote.

DeBello contends that if Stage did what he is accused of, “He was most likely threatened or pressured. Even both.”

Student Aline Serrano echoed DeBello’s contention: “If anything, he might have done it under pressure.”

Another student, Mazi Campos, said, “He loves his friends and he is the type of person that takes the blame for his friends.

“That explains his actions,” Campos wrote. “He took the blame for someone else.”

As student Luis Quintero sees it, “Taren would never do such an asinine, idiotic or stupid thing to call in a bomb threat.”

In a phone interview, Stage’s older sister, Tearney Janssen, of Indiana, said, “He would take care of someone else before he would take care of himself. He was good to everyone.”

Stage’s mother refused public comment.

The other student charged in the case, Brittany Ann Walker, 18, of the 300 block of 21st Avenue, is charged with one count of making a false bomb threat. She is being tried as a juvenile and her court files aren’t public record.

At the time of the arrests of Stage and Walker, Sheriff Deryl Loar said Stage confessed to making the calls but didn’t give an explanation.

“Some of the calls were made from the school,” Loar said. “Some of the calls were made either from his residence or when he was en route to school.”

Prior to starting Vero Beach High School in January, Stage was placed in the district’s Alternative Center for Education because he was charged with grand larceny of a fire extinguisher at Sebastian River High School.

The assistant public defender handling Stage’s case is out of the office this week and couldn’t be reached for comment.

By Elliott Jones

Tags: arrest, beach, bomb, court, deputies, deputy, driver, education, fire, fires, girlfriend, grand, hand, mother, police, Schools, sheriff, students, teen, teens, threats, walker, writing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 10:12 am and is filed under Courts, Crime, Schools, Vero Beach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.