NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A woman admitted she helped her troubled, bullied 14-year-old son build a weapons cache by buying a rifle and gunpowder, but investigators still don’t know if she was aware her son was planning a deadly school attack.

Michele Cossey, 46, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Montgomery County Court to one count of child endangerment. She admitted that she gave her son access to a rifle with a laser scope and gunpowder, which investigators said he was using to build grenades.

Prosecutors said her son, Dillon, came to idolize the Columbine High School shooters and was planning an attack last year on Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, which some former schoolmates attended.

Cossey, bullied over his weight, had left public school in seventh grade and was being home-schooled. Over time, violent Internet sites fueled his revenge fantasies, his defense lawyer said after his court plea.

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Parisi said he thought purchasing the weapons was “an attempt to boost his self-esteem, and in some way help the child, as misplaced as those thoughts may have been.”

Michelle Cossey’s sentencing won’t occur for at least three months until a psychiatric evaluation is completed.

The maximum possible prison term is 31/2 to 7 years, but her defense attorney she could get less than a year – or even just probation – under sentencing guidelines.

Parisi said he doesn’t know if Cossey knew about her son’s attack plans, but that he hopes to learn that before sentencing.

“If it were to come out that she knew he was planning an attack … that would certainly increase the severity of the crime,” he said.

The judge who sentenced Dillon Cossey to a juvenile treatment facility, where he could remain until his 21st birthday, said that Michele Cossey had fostered a “me-and-mom-against-the-world” attitude in her only child.

Authorities did not think the school attack was imminent, but the boy did amass an arsenal – knives, swords, BB guns, the rifle and partly assembled homemade grenades – in his bedroom at his Plymouth Township home.

Police learned of the planned attack when Cossey invited a friend to join him. The friend went to police last fall.

The boy’s father, Frank, sat beside his wife as she entered the plea. He had tried to buy their son a rifle in 2005, but was stymied by a prior felony conviction, which he failed to note on the application. The omission led to a house arrest sentence for lying about his criminal record.

Michelle Cossey has had twice-a-month supervised visits with her son, is missing him and wants him back home, defense lawyer Tim Woodward said.

“Her ultimate goal is to be reunited with her son,” the attorney said. “She does admit that she made some mistakes.”

AP-ES-09-23-08 1735EDT