By SYDNEY SCHWARTZ
The Patriot Ledger

PLYMOUTH - Three years after police learned of a student plot to shoot up Marshfield High School, the first of two teens charged in the case has been sentenced to the equivalent of a school year behind bars.

Tobin Kerns, 19, continues to insist that he is innocent and that the scheme cooked up by a band of boys who called themselves ‘‘Natural Born Killers’’ was just talk.

Police uncovered detailed plans for the April 2005 attack, including maps of the school and a list of students and teachers to target. The boys also experimented with homemade bombs they planned to detonate inside the school, police said.

In September, Kerns was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and threatening to use deadly weapons.

On Tuesday, Juvenile Court Judge Louis Coffin sentenced him to two concurrent 10-month jail sentences. Kerns will spend five months in jail because he received credit for the five months he spent in juvenile detention facilities.

‘‘This may not have been the most perfect of plans, but there was a plan,’’ Judge Coffin said Tuesday.

‘‘To dismiss this case as a lot of hot air or to blame this case on a houseguest from hell ignores the evidence,’’ he said.

Kerns and Joseph Nee, 21, were indicted in the fall of 2004. Their plot was allegedly modeled after the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Nee, the son of Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association President Thomas Nee, is scheduled to go on trial Jan. 30 in Plymouth Superior Court in Brockton. Nee spent about a month living at Kerns’ home in 2004.

Kerns had faced up to 40 years in prison. Prosecutors asked for two 2½-year sentences and Kerns’ lawyer asked that his client be released Tuesday. Coffin sentenced Kerns to jail with other adults rather than time in a juvenile facility.

‘‘Obviously, this sentence was fair,’’ said John McLaughlin, who argued the case for the district attorney’s office last year.

McLaughlin, who is now in private practice in Quincy, said Kerns ‘‘is an individual ... with absolutely no remorse. ...He accepts zero responsibility. ...I think that makes him very dangerous.’’

Kerns’ criminal record stretches back before he became a ‘‘Natural Born Killer.’’ He was on probation during the time he was plotting the school attack; he had been charged with vandalizing a school and breaking and entering.

Marsha Chez, Kerns’ aunt, the only one of his relatives who attended the hearing Tuesday, said the sentence was ‘‘probably a very good sentence’’ considering what her nephew could have faced.

Kerns’ trial was largely completed in October 2006. A verdict was delayed because prosecutors and the judge had differing legal interpretations of a law on making threats to use dangerous weapons at a school. The argument was decided by the state Supreme Judicial Court.

Coffin said the delays worked to Kerns’ benefit. In the years since his indictment, Kerns finished two years of high school with a private tutor, enrolled in classes at Quincy College and worked at a student-loan collection agency in Norwell.

Coffin said Kerns has matured in the years since the plot was uncovered and that he does not think Kerns is likely to commit crimes in the future.

But, Coffin said, the impact of Kerns’ actions on Marshfield cannot be underestimated. He said the length of the sentences is symbolic - being the length of one school year.

During the trial, Kerns denied having any part in the plan. He admitted to writing a list of supplies that would enable someone to lay siege to the high school, but he said he did so mockingly, in an effort to patronize Nee.

He said he did not think Nee was serious when he talked about seeking revenge on his enemies.

In September, Judge Coffin said Kerns was involved in the plot only until June 2004, when he was hospitalized for mental-health problems. Kerns was arrested in September 2004. Nee was arrested the following month.

Two other Marshfield students, Joseph Sullivan and Daniel Farley, were given immunity in exchange for their testimony.

Friends and family members said Kerns was a victim of Nee.

‘‘This is about bullying,’’ Chez said. ‘‘Those boys used not conventional weapons on my nephew. They used the Marshfield Police Department. They used the district attorney’s office.’’

Prosecutors submitted two victim-impact statements, from the mother of a student who would have been targeted in the attack and the Marshfield school superintendent.

After the sentencing, several friends left the court room teary-eyed.

‘‘He should be out today,’’ said Kerns’ friend John Ford, 21. ‘‘This whole case has just been outrageous and extreme.’’

Kerns’ lawyer, William McElligott, said he did not believe his client would appeal the case.

‘‘If we were to appeal what we would get is a new trial,’’ he said. ‘‘I don’t think he wants to go through that again.’’

Kerns’ father, Ben Kerns, said by phone that this conviction would plague his son for the rest of his life..

‘‘The fact is that Toby never intended to hurt anybody,’’ said Kerns, a photographer who now lives in Seattle. ‘‘His life’s been destroyed because of this. This will follow him the rest of his life.

‘‘My life’s been destroyed. His life’s been destroyed. We will pick up our pieces and move on with our lives.’’

The 4-year saga of a plot to attack Marshfield school

— December 2003: Four teens begin calling themselves the Natural Born Killers.

—January-May 2004: The group allegedly plots to attack Marshfield High School on April 15, 2005.

—June 2004: Benjamin Kerns hospitalizes his son Tobin.

—July 2004: Tobin Kerns is released from McLean Hospital.

—September 2004: Joseph Nee, Joseph Sullivan and Daniel Farley tell police that Kerns has a plan to attack the school.

— September 2004: Police arrest Kerns. A judge orders him held without bail for 90 days.

—October 2004: Police announce that they have arrested a student for plotting to attack the school. Witnesses tell police that Nee was also conspiring to attack the school.

—October 2004: Police arrest Nee at Marshfield High School. A judge orders him held without bail for 90 days.

— October 2004: A Plymouth County grand jury indicts Nee and Kerns on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, promoting anarchy and threatening to use deadly weapons at a school.

—January 2005: Kerns is released on bail after being held for more than 100 days. Nee is released later that month.

—February 2005: A Plymouth District Court judge tosses out Kerns’ father’s request for a restraining order against Nee.

—April 2006: Joseph Sullivan and Daniel Farley are granted immunity in exchange for their testimony in Nee’s trial. Judge Louis Coffin rules that the immunity granted to the witnesses in Plymouth Superior Court does not protect their Juvenile Court testimony.

—July 2006: Supreme Judicial Court rules that an immunity agreement between prosecutors and witnesses Sullivan and Farley applies to both the Kerns and Nee trials.

—October 2006: Kerns’ trial is held. Judge Coffin dismisses a charge of promotion of anarchy, saying there is nothing to suggest that the alleged conspirators were trying to rally others in an attempt to overthrow the government.

—October 2006: The state Supreme Judicial Court refuses to rule on a key question in the case.

—February 2007: The Supreme Judicial Court requests more information before answering a key question in the trial.

—August 2007: The Supreme Judicial Court clears the way for a verdict, finding that Judge Coffin misinterpreted a new law in deciding whether Kerns could be convicted of threatening the attack.

—September 2007: Kerns is found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and threatening to use deadly weapons in school. Kerns returns to a juvenile detention facility.

—November 2007: Kerns is sentenced to 10 months in the adult Plymouth County jail, minus credit for time served.

—January 2008: Nee’s trial scheduled to begin in Plymouth Superior Court.

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Sydney Schwartz is at sschwartz@ledger.com .

Copyright 2007 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Wednesday, November 14, 2007