Former SEAS student faces harassment charges

On Thursday, police arrested former Penn student Saad Masood for harassment at about 12 p.m. at 33rd and Walnut streets.

Masood, who studied at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, was also charged with terroristic threats, stalking repeatedly and disorderly conduct. He is held on a bail of $2,500, according to court documents.

Currently, he is confined in a county prison and set to be arraigned on Wednesday.

A security alert from the Division of Public Safety was released last week concerning Masood, stating that he continued “to contact professors, via phone, e-mail and in person, despite having been told by Special Services and [the Vice Provost for University Life] not to return to Penn.”

On Dec. 22, Masood entered the office of Tonya Williams Revel, manager of the consulting staff.

“He was upset about his account not being reactivated. He ranted about that, saying I needed to do something about the faculty violating his privacy, that no one had the right to forward his e-mails,” Revel wrote in an e-mail that was sent to the entire Engineering faculty.

Revel said Masood did not threaten her, but “was obviously agitated and pretty scary.”

His picture was then given to the Penn Police and a copy was left on the mail table, so that staff could identify him and alert security.

He was “harassing administrators, faculty, and staff trying to get re-admitted [to SEAS],” Charles Buchholtz, Director of Systems Programming, wrote in a staff-wide e-mail. “[Masood] has not been violent, but he is loud and intimidating.”

“He is not allowed to be on Penn’s campus,” Buchholtz added.

Buchholtz wrote Masood called the Computing and Educational Technology Services to report that he needed to recover “his passport and some books and papers” in a computer lab in the Towne Building. After this, faculty contacted the police.

Prior to Masood’s arrest Thursday, the Engineering Department increased safety precautions throughout the Engineering School complex in response to his reappearance.

Students and staff were required to swipe their PennCards or show identification to security guards to gain access to Engineering buildings.

Engineering freshman Melissa Schwartz said she received a department-wide e-mail informing students not to prop open doors to prevent others from coming into the buildings.

However, most students did not know the reason for the heightened security.

“None of this was an inconvenience because they seemed pretty normal to me at this point,” Schwartz added, referring to the fact that many buildings such as college houses and the Penn Museum require students to swipe their PennCards.

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