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Alulim
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Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 290
Location: New Albion
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 Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: Ivan The Terrible Ivanov - Be Skeptical |
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| Quote: | Weapons Cache Found in Brooklyn Home
By COLLEEN LONG – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Investigators tried to determine Monday whether a man with a cache of pipe bombs and other weapons at his apartment was targeting synagogues and homes he had defaced in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a ranking police official said Monday.
Officers went to Ivan Ivanov's apartment after he reported being shot on Sunday evening, police said. Investigators, who said the wound to his finger was self-inflicted, discovered what appeared to be a homemade bomb and several other devices and weapons.
A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, said Ivanov told police he planned to use the explosives on a fishing trip, detonating the devices underwater to bring the fish to the surface.
Investigators seized his computer and were searching the files, the official said.
Ivanov had been suspected of spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti in September on three houses, two cars and the staircases of two synagogues in his neighborhood but had not been charged, the official said.
After the weapons were discovered, he made statements implicating himself in the graffiti case and was arrested on hate crime charges, the official said.
Ivanov, 37, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, as well as criminal possession of a weapon and reporting a false incident. Bail was set at $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash, the Brooklyn prosecutor's office said.
Ivanov's Legal Aid lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A court hearing has been set for this week, the prosecutor's office said.
Police were also trying to reach Ivanov's roommate, a medical anthropologist and associate professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Residents of the Brooklyn Heights building said the professor was doing research out of the country.
The building and others in the tree-lined neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge were evacuated for several hours while the bomb squad investigated early Sunday.
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Alulim
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Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 290
Location: New Albion
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| Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 5:27 am Post subject: |
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How did I know?
| Quote: |
Pipe-bomb suspect may have targeted Jewish sites
BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA | rocco.parascandola@newsday.com
11:34 PM EST, January 21, 2008
A Brooklyn Heights man arrested on charges of making pipe bombs has also confessed to scrawling swastikas and hate messages in the neighborhood, according to police, and they are trying to figure out if the suspect planned to target synagogues or other sites with the arsenal found in his apartment, sources said.
Investigators said Ivaylo Ivanov, 37, at first told them he needed the weapons -- eight pipe bombs, including one stuffed in a foam football, handguns, a rifle, a shotgun, two silencers, a crossbow, gunpowder and machines to help build the bombs -- for protection. He also told police he planned to use the bombs for fishing.
But police also believe he is responsible for a spate of hate graffiti in the neighborhood on Sept. 24, so they want to ensure Ivanov didn't intend to use the weapons in an anti-Semitic campaign. "We want to make certain there were no plans to use them to attack a synagogue," a high-ranking police official said Monday night.
Ivanov was arrested Sunday after he called 911 and told police someone had shot him in the finger, but he told police later he had accidentally shot himself. Police who responded to his apartment said they found the weapons cache. Investigators are examining Ivanov's computer.
Signs of hate
Late Sunday, after more than 12 hours in custody on weapons charges, Ivanov told detectives he spray-painted swastikas or hate messages at two synagogues and four other buildings, on nine cars and on sidewalks.
The vandalism, mostly swastikas, included one four-foot-high symbol of hate inside an apartment building on Columbia Place, police said. The suspect also allegedly wrote "Kill all Jews" and "America hates Jews" on fliers left on two cars.
Ivanov appeared at his arraignment Monday still dressed in pajama bottoms, his left hand and forearm bandaged. He was charged with 10 counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of not having a weapons permit. Regarding the graffiti, he also was charged with five counts of second-degree aggravated harassment, including two counts as a hate crime, and four counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief, including two counts as a hate crime.
Ivanov is a Bulgarian national who has a green card, said Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Kerry J. Pukhaber.
Judge John Wilson ordered Ivanov held on $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash bail. Wilson ordered him to surrender his passport if he makes bail.
Ivanov's lawyer, Adrian Lesher, said Ivanov is a linguist and is himself Jewish.
"The defendant basically led police to the apartment in a situation that was almost calculated," Lesher said at the arraignment. "It makes it less likely that he is a threat. He is an educated person."
Ivanov, as it turns out, was the prime suspect in the September spate of graffiti. Police interviewed him several times, obtained a handwriting sample and even visited his apartment, an official said.
But the sample was inconclusive and nothing in his apartment suggested Ivanov was collecting and assembling weapons and explosives, the official said. He has a 2003 conviction for petty larceny.
Led to the weapons
Early Sunday, Ivanov called 911 and said an attacker had shot him in the left index finger. Officers who responded to Ivanov's Remsen Street apartment found the bullet lodged in a chair, then got a search warrant, finding the guns and crossbow on his mattress and the pipe bombs, complete with caps and fuses and believed to be fully functional, in a closet.
Ivanov lives in the apartment with Michael Clatts, an associate professor at Columbia University who specializes in studying the spread of infectious diseases.
Police said there is no evidence to suggest Ivanov is connected to a terrorist group or planned to carry out an attack and nothing found thus far suggests Clatts was involved with the weapons or graffiti, police said.
Monday, apprehension was replaced in some quarters by relief. Rabbi Aaron Raskin, whose synagogue, Congregation B'nai Avraham, was among those defaced, said he expected the suspect would be a teenager or someone with a mental illness -- not a grown man with no documented psychiatric problems.
"Thank God the perpetrator was caught and justice will be served," he said. "It is a relief, but on the other hand it is a disappointment knowing that this person was very dangerous."
On Columbia Place, meanwhile, a resident of the building that had been defaced said building management had beefed up security.
Still, said Daya Kapupara, 28, a student, it was unnerving to learn the suspect lived so close -- and was allegedly making pipe bombs.
"We had no idea who it could be," Kapupara said. "This is really surprising."
Pervaiz Shallwani contributed to this story.
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Alexander
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Alulim
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Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 290
Location: New Albion
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| Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
January 22, 2008
Weapons Trove Suspect Is Linked to Hate Crimes
By FERNANDA SANTOS and KAREEM FAHIM
It all happened in less than three hours on a cool September night — a prolific spurt of anti-Jewish vandalism at more than a dozen locations in the heart of Brooklyn Heights.
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And later Monday evening, after Mr. Ivanov’s arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court, his lawyer surprised reporters with his own announcement: Mr. Ivanov is himself Jewish.
The revelation was the latest twist in a bizarre story that features a man who, police said, shot his own finger; a sizable weapons collection, including pipe bombs and a sawed-off shotgun, found in an apartment in one of Brooklyn’s most exclusive neighborhoods; and a prominent H.I.V./AIDS researcher and medical anthropologist, who owns the apartment.
The hate crimes had unsettled local residents, many of whom awoke on the morning of Sept. 25 to find swastikas and other slurs scratched, scrawled and spray-painted on cars, playgrounds, synagogues and building facades. Crude fliers reading “Kill All Jews” were strewn about.
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Mr. Lesher declined to answer questions after the arraignment, but did say, “I can tell you he’s Jewish.” He would not comment further.
Upon hearing that Mr. Ivanov was said to be Jewish, Aaron L. Raskin, the rabbi of Congregation B’Nai Avraham, one of the desecrated synagogues, was skeptical. [???]
“Is his mother Jewish or is his father Jewish?” the rabbi asked, adding that to be “biblically Jewish,” Mr. Ivanov would have to have a Jewish mother.
“If he is Jewish, then he really needs to see a rabbi,” Rabbi Raskin said. Still, he said that he would ask his congregants to pray for Mr. Ivanov “to strengthen the unity of the neighborhood.”
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Much less is known about Mr. Ivanov. In court, his lawyer said that Mr. Ivanov is a linguist. The authorities are not sure of his age, saying he is either 37 or 31 years old. Mr. Ivanov told the police that he was born in Sicily and raised in Bulgaria, and that he had been trained by Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad. He has been arrested in the past on charges that included petty larceny, according to the police, but the disposition of those cases was not available. It was not clear how long he had been living at 58 Remsen Street, but neighbors said they recalled seeing him more than they saw Mr. Clatts.
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The police said they then decided to search his apartment, and what they found was alarming: bloody rags and towels everywhere, and weapons, mostly in the kitchen and living room. The arsenal included seven pipe bombs and two pounds of what the police called a “low-explosive powder”; a sawed-off shotgun and a crossbow with arrows; another pipe bomb, hidden in a foam football; and other rifles, including pellet guns. The discovery prompted an all-day evacuation of the building.
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After a swastika appeared on the steps outside Congregation B’Nai Avraham, within sight of the building where Mr. Ivanov lived, the congregation hired a security guard and installed high-resolution surveillance cameras, Rabbi Raskin said.
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