SOUTH BEND — The Penn High School student who admitted plotting an attack on the school told a judge Tuesday he's sorry and he never intended to carry it out.

Authorities say the 16-year-old and an Ohio man he met on the Internet talked online about mass murders to be carried out at Penn and another location. Police have not said what that other location would be.

The teen pleaded guilty last month to juvenile charges of conspiracy to commit murder.

At a sentencing hearing Tuesday, the teenager stood up and read a statement, apologizing for what he did. He admitted to making the plans, but said he'd never actually kill anyone.

The judge listened and then told him he'd have an opportunity to salvage his life after serving time in juvenile prison.

The attacks were described to be similar to those at Columbine.

The 16-year-old Penn High School student said he'd researched how to obtain a 9 millimeter handgun, conspired to kill, and even set a date.

A notebook entry obtained by prosecutors said:

“I wish I could shoot up the school and get away with it and still get my national recognition. That's how much I hate most of the people here."

But Tuesday at the Juvenile Justice Center, before he was sentenced, the 16-year-old told the judge he was sorry.

"I know right from wrong," he said. "And I know what I wrote was wrong. I could never actually harm a human being.”

Minutes later, the judge sentenced him to the Indiana Department of Correction's Boys School.

“I’m not at all surprised by the outcome,” said James Nafe, the student’s lawyer.

While Nafe isn’t surprised, he did express his disappointment.

“We thought a therapeutic organization such as Family and Children's Center might have been a better alternative for him,” said Nafe.

His mother, speaking for the first time, said she's comfortable with the sentence but still more than hurt by what her son did.

“I think after my father's death, a lot of things happened and he snapped … we were very close the three of us,” said the student’s mother.

Her son faces up to five years in the Indiana Boys School — that's when he'll turn 21.

He may be released earlier, but that will be up to the judge to decide.

The student did not talk about why he did this, just that he's sorry he wrote about it and that it wasn't his intention to actually kill anybody.