WILTON — High-profile defense lawyer Ronald E. Hoffman has been charged with calling in bomb threats to two Wilton elementary schools, one that had students as young as 4 years old, officials said.

Hoffman was charged Friday with two counts of misdemeanor terrorizing by making bomb threats March 29 to Cushing and the Academy Hill schools, Wilton Police Chief Heidi Wilcox wrote in a news release.

“It’s bizarre,” Mt. Blue Regional School Unit Superintendent Michael Cormier said Saturday. “It was shocking to us. A lawyer would know the consequences.”

Darlene Paine, principal of the two elementary schools, said she was relieved police had charged someone. The schools had never before received a bomb threat, she said. “I didn’t expect it,” she said. Cushing School houses prekindergarten through grade two; Academy Hill, grades three through five.

Hoffman, 52, lives in Sumner and practices law in Rumford. In 2007, he represented Christian Nielsen, a restaurant cook who is serving a life sentence for killing and dismembering four people on Labor Day weekend in Newry and Upton in 2006.

Hoffman also represented Richard Moulton, serving a 40-year sentence for his role in the murders of Victor Sheldon and Roger Day in Rumford in 2009.

Superintendent Cormier said the bomb-threat caller used a cellphone. “The first time he called, the line was busy. He called back a second time. The secretary who got the call, she did not hang up the phone.”

Investigators were able to track the call, Cormier said.

He praised police for their work in the investigation, comparing it to scenes from the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

“They did an outstanding job,” Cormier said.

Chief Wilcox said Wilton police worked with Detectives Randall Keaten and Leonard Bolton from the Major Crimes Unit of the Maine State Police and with a special agent from the FBI.

Bomb threats to high schools have been somewhat common, but not bomb threats to primary and elementary schools, Cormier said. The March 29 threats led to the evacuation of both buildings, from which 363 students were removed and taken to schools in Farmington. The schools didn’t have time to alert all of the parents, Cormier said. Three fire departments, four police agencies and NorthStar Ambulance responded.

Parents were upset as they came to pick up their children, Cormier said. “They were hearing about it on the (police) scanner. Some parents were besides themselves.” With students so young, “the mama bears and papa bears come out.”

Cormier said he had been told the case would be settled through a plea deal with the Somerset County District Attorney’s Office.

“That is distressing,” Cormier said, adding that the school district has requested that it go to court. “We feel it’s important enough.”

Hoffman is the sole practitioner at his Congress Street law firm. He was admitted to the Maine Bar in 1997 after graduating from the Massachusetts School of Law. He is currently licensed to represent clients in federal court cases in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Efforts to reach Hoffman on Saturday were not successful.