TERROR SUSPECT ARRESTED
Nationwide hunt for bomber leads FBI to South Florida Cesar Sayoc Jr. charged with five federal crimes Former pizza delivery driver was living out of his van
An investigation into the most extensive campaign of political terrorism in a generation ended Friday morning in a suburban Fort Lauderdale parking lot with the arrest of a former pizza delivery driver who was living in his van.
A fingerprint and traces of DNA led the FBI to Cesar Altieri Sayoc Jr. as the man behind a bizarre mail bomb campaign against critics of President Trump in the weeks before the midterm elections.
Sayoc, who covered his white van with stickers supporting Trump, claiming “CNN Sucks” and portraying prominent Democrats with crosshairs drawn over them, was charged Friday with five federal crimes, including mailing an incendiary device and threatening a former president. He faces up to 58 years in prison for sending 13 mail bombs to former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several others, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.
“Political violence or the threat of violence is antithetical to our vigorous system of self-government,” Sessions said.
Sayoc, a registered Republican with a long criminal record, was taken into custody at an AutoZone in Plantation, Florida, just outside Fort Lauderdale. A witness, Bill Ferris, who pulled into the store’s parking lot around 10:40 a.m., saw FBI agents waiting with rifles. Deciding it wasn’t safe to be there, Ferris pulled out, just as the agents struck.
“We heard a loud explosion, now I could tell that was some kind of concussion grenade or whatever,” he said. “The FBI was telling everybody to get out. Right in our rear view mirror. Boom! It shook the truck.”
Sayoc was taken to the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami late Friday and is expected to appear Monday in federal court in Miami. He will be transferred for prosecution to New York, destination of the largest number of mail bombs, where he will be represented by the federal public defender’s office.
The ambitious, if ineffective, attempt to harm prominent Trump critics raised tensions in an already divisive election season.
Democrats, and some Republicans, accused Trump and his allies of provoking political violence with inflammatory attacks on Democrats and the news media – most recently with Trump’s approving comment on a congressman who assaulted a reporter. Republicans spoke of a Democratic false-flag attack, suggesting the bombs were a hoax intended to hurt Republican chances in the Nov. 6 election.
Investigators focused on Sayoc, of Aventura, after lifting a fingerprint from a bomb package sent to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, FBI Director Chris Wray said at the news conference. There is also a possible DNA match between the suspect and material collected from the bombs sent to Waters and Obama, according to court papers filed Friday.
The bombs consisted of PVC pipe, clocks, batteries, wiring and explosive material, Wray said. Although there had been talk the bombs weren’t real, he said, “These were not hoax devices.”
A bodybuilder who had worked as a nightclub bouncer, pizza delivery driver and strip club DJ, Sayoc had led a troubled life marked by financial difficulties, including a bankruptcy, and frequent brushes with the law. He had been arrested at least 10 times for theft, drugs and other offenses, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
One criminal charge involved a 2002 threat against Florida Power & Light, when he told a company representative he would blow up FPL and “it would be worse than 9-11,” according to a Miami Police Department report. In 1994 his grandmother petitioned for a protective order against him, saying she “fears for her physical safety” since he is volatile and physically powerful.
Sayoc, who collected unemployment for two years, filed for bankruptcy in 2012, listing $4,175 worth of assets and more than $21,000 in debts.
“Debtor lives with mother, owns no furniture,” according to one entry on the court forms. He worked most recently as a DJ at the Ultra Gentlemen’s Club in suburban West Palm Beach.
A Twitter account in the name of Cesar Altieri, which appeared to belong to the suspect, consists of pro-Republican, anti-Democrat memes, including attacks on wealthy Democratic donor George Soros, a frequent object of Republican attacks and a recipient of one of the mail bombs.
“$500,000 Soros Puppet” states one Twitter post, with a photo identified as Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for Florida governor.
Another post attacks David Hogg, a graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who became a prominent gun-control activist in the aftermath of the shooting at the school.
“David Hoggs fake phony big gets con job never attended Parkland High School,” Sayoc wrote. “He graduated 2015 from Redondo Bch High School. He is a paid George Soros actor fraud.”
Sayoc’s party affiliation was current as of Sept. 30, 2018, according to state voter files. State corporation filings show him as an owner or manager of two businesses, Native American Catering and Vending and Ver Tech AG.
Early Friday afternoon, two FBI agents could be seen inside the AutoZone, appearing to be interviewing a store employee. Later they left the store with the employee, with all three getting into an unmarked Dodge Charger and driving away. A sign in the store window says it will be closed until Saturday morning. FBI agents covered Sayoc’s van with a blue tarp, loaded it onto a truck and took it away.
Trump, in his first remarks Sayoc was apprehended, declared that “we must never allow political violence take root in America.”
Trump declared that “these terrorizing acts are despicable” and said Americans “must unify.”
But his remarks came just hours after Trump tweeted a complaint that the media’s focus on bombs was distracting from Republican efforts in the upcoming midterm elections.
He also put the word “bomb” in quotes, a seeming nod to Republican supporters who believed the scare was a hoax.
The investigation had shifted to South Florida Thursday and Friday, when investigators discovered that several went through the processing and distribution center in Opa-locka, which serves Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. The Miami-Dade Police went to the mail-sorting facility, located on the southwest side of the Miami Opa-Locka Executive Airport. on Thursday at the request of the FBI, said Detective Argemis Colome.
Others targeted for mail bombs included New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, former Vice President Joe Biden, actor Robert De Niro and former Obama CIA Director John Brennan in care of CNN in New York.
All of the packages contained the return address of South Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
One of the packages was delivered to her Florida office Wednesday when it was returned by the Postal Service. Her name was misspelled on the label. It was addressed to Eric Holder, former U.S. attorney general under President Barack Obama.
The packages stoked nationwide tensions and fears as voters prepared to vote Nov. 6 to determine partisan control of Congress — a campaign both parties have described in nearapocalyptic terms. Even with the sender still unknown, politicians from both parties used the threats to decry a toxic political climate and lay blame.
“A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News,” Trump said on Twitter. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act,
FAST!”
Former CIA Director John Brennan, the target of a package sent to CNN, fired back.
“Stop blaming others. Look in the mirror,” Brennan tweeted. “Your inflammatory rhetoric, insults, lies, & encouragement of physical violence are disgraceful. Clean up your act .... try to act Presidential.”
The list of bombing targets spread from New York, Delaware and Washington, D.C., to Florida and California.
The explosive devices were packed in envelopes with bubble-wrap interiors bearing six American flag stamps and the return address of Schultz, the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Like earlier targets, both Biden and De Niro have been sharply critical of Trump. The actor dropped an expletive insult at Trump at this year’s Tony Awards and also apologized to Canadians for the “idiotic behavior of my president.” Biden said last week that the president may not “know what he’s doing” and coddles dictators.
Trump has called Biden “Crazy Joe” and “mentally weak.”
On Thursday, during a campaign trip to suburban Buffalo, Biden said: “We’ve got to get off this hate machine. We’ve got to come together.”
The packages were “clearly an effort to terrorize people politically, to choose people for political purposes and attack them because of their beliefs,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, whose name had been used by the bomber as a return address, praised “the brave women and men in law enforcement” who caught him.
“The suspect who was apprehended in no way represents the character of our community or what we stand for,” she said in a statement. “I’m confident that this attack on our democracy will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We will never let those who use violence intimidate us or keep us from doing our jobs. Love, compassion, and kindness will always win out over hate.”