/ Updated
By Pete Williams, Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter, Andrew Blankstein and Elisha Fieldstadt
A
Florida man was charged Friday in connection with the series of bombs
found this week addressed to critics of President Donald Trump, law
enforcement officials said shortly after more devices were found.
Cesar Sayoc, 56, who has been arrested before, was in custody, law enforcement officials said. DNA evidence played a role in the arrest, law enforcement told NBC News.
He
was charged with five federal counts: interstate transport of
explosives, mailing of explosives, threats against former presidents,
making threatening interstate communications and assault of current or
former officials.
Sayoc faces up to 48 years behind bars if convicted of all counts, officials said.
Each
device was made up of a 6-inch PVC pipe, a small clock, battery, wiring
and “energetic material” that could have set off an explosive, FBI
Director Christopher Wray said at a press conference.
“Though we are still analyzing the devices in our laboratories, these are not hoax devices," he said.
The
break in the case came when fingerprints were lifted off a suspicious
package mailed to Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and two DNA samples from
mailings to the congresswoman and former President Barack Obama,
according to the criminal complaint.
The prints and DNA linked the packages to Sayoc, officials said.
“This is phenomenal work under the greatest pressure under an incredibly tight time frame,” Wray said.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Wray declined to speculate about Sayoc’s possible motives.
Sessions
said Sayoc appeared to be a political partisan, "but that would be
determined by the facts as the case goes forward. I’m not able to
comment on that."
And Wray added, “We’re concerned about people committing acts of violence under any motivation.”
Sayoc has an extensive criminal past, records showed. He was arrested in
2002 for threatening to throw a bomb; he pleaded guilty and was given a
special sentence in which probation is ordered but a formal conviction
is not made. He was also arrested for theft in 1992 and 2014.
Sayoc
filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and is a registered Republican, according
to public records. His cousin, who asked not to be identified, said
Sayoc had worked in strip clubs as a dancer and a bouncer.
"He’s
always been a little bit of a loose cannon. He’s always been a lost
soul," the cousin said. "Too many steroids in his day. That stuff will
melt your brain."
Investigators in the Plantation,
Florida, parking lot where Sayoc was arrested could be seen placing a
tarp over a van with windows covered with pictures of Trump and
political memes. Some pictures on the van of Democratic politicians,
including Hillary Clinton, had red targets over their faces.
Sayoc's Twitter feed is full of partially incoherent attacks on Democrats and the media.
Four
more suspicious packages were discovered Friday, one in Florida
addressed to Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and another in New York addressed
to former U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper,
officials said.
The
third package was found at a Sacramento postal facility and addressed
to Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., two law enforcement officials told NBC
News. It wasn't immediately clear if that package was connected to the
others.
"Our understanding is that a trained postal
employee identified the package at a Sacramento mail facility and
reported it to the authorities. Fortunately, nobody was injured,"
according to a statement from Harris' office.
"Senator
Harris is enormously grateful to law enforcement officials across the
country who have worked so hard over the past week to keep our fellow
citizens safe."
And the fourth was addressed to
California billionaire, philanthropist and liberal activist Tom Steyer
and was found at a Burlingame, California, postal sorting facility, two
law enforcement sources said.
Steyer runs the political advocacy groups NextGen America and Need to Impeach.
"We’re
thankful that everyone we work with at NextGen America and Need to
Impeach is safe — that’s always our first priority, and will continue to
be our first priority," Steyer said. "We are seeing a systematic attack
on our democracy and our rule of law that extends much further than
just one isolated terrorist in Florida."
The package
addressed to Booker was discovered at a postal facility in Opa-locka,
Florida. On Thursday, investigators said they believed some of the
packages may have passed through that mail sorting facility. The
packages listed Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's address in Sunrise,
Florida, as the return address. Sunrise is adjacent to Plantation and
less than 20 miles north of Opa-locka.
"Grateful for law
enforcement's work to bring those responsible to justice & for their
vigilance to keep Americans safe," Booker tweeted on Friday.
"Cowardly acts of terror will never silence or intimidate
Americans—they will only strengthen our resolve to stand against fear
& hatred."
The package mailed to Clapper was addressed to CNN's New York offices, according to a picture obtained by NBC New York, and discovered at a postal facility in Midtown Manhattan.
The
New York Police Department said Friday morning that they were
responding to a possible device at the postal facility at 52nd Street
and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, about six blocks away from the Time Warner
Center, where CNN is. The explosive device was the second to be addressed to the news network this week.
Buildings near the post office, including a high school, had been evacuated.
Police
said later Friday morning that the package had been removed and would
first go to an NYPD facility in the Bronx before it would be sent to the
FBI's lab in Quantico.
On CNN, where Clapper works as a contributor, he called the series of mailed explosives "domestic terrorism."
"I
think anyone who has in any way been a critic, publicly been a critic
of President Trump, needs to be on extra alert and take some cautions,
precautions, particularly with respect to mail," he said.
Clapper
stressed that he wasn't "suggesting a direct cause-and-effect
relationship" between anything the president has said or done and the
sending of the packages, but "I do think he bears some responsibility
for the coarseness and uncivility of the dialogue in this country, and
that he needs to remember that his words count."
At an event Friday, Trump lauded
law enforcement for apprehending the suspect, saying: "These
terrorizing acts are despicable, and they have no place in our country.
No place."
"We must never allow political violence to
take root in America," Trump said. "The bottom line is that Americans
must unify and show the world that we are united in peace and love and
harmony as fellow American citizens."
Earlier in the day,
after Friday's bombs were discovered, Trump tweeted, "Republicans are
doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this 'Bomb'
stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows — news not talking
politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and
vote!."
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told
reporters earlier that “the president is receiving constant information
as it is available.”
1 comment:
Something smells rotten here! This just don't add up! Stamps not cancelled and zero post marks! I get ebay packages and never without post marks!
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