FBI foils plot to blow up Bank of America in Oakland!
A man who said that he believes in violent jihad and hopes to start a civil war in the United States was arrested early Friday after attempting to detonate a bomb to bring down a four-story building housing a Bank of America branch in Oakland, California. According to SFGate.com:
Matthew Aaron Llaneza, 28, of San Jose was taken into custody near the bank at 303 Hegenberger Road <Google Map> at 12:30 a.m. after pressing a cell-phone trigger device that was supposed to set off the explosives inside an SUV and bring down the four-story building, said U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s office.
An undercover FBI agent posing as a go-between with the Taliban in Afghanistan had been meeting with Llaneza since Nov. 30 and accompanied him to the bank, according to an FBI declaration filed in federal court. The declaration said the FBI had built the purported bomb, which was inert and posed no threat to the public.
Today, Llaneza appeared before a federal magistrate in Oakland on the charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, which is punishable by life in prison. He is scheduled to return to court for a bail hearing on Wednesday.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Joseph Matthews, who was assigned to represent him, declined to comment.
Court records and lawyers in a 2011 criminal case against Llaneza in San Jose described him as delusional and suicidal. He told police in that case that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. His attorney in the San Jose case said a judge had verified in two court hearings that Llaneza was getting mental health treatment.
The declaration from the FBI stated that Llaneza “…told the supposed Taliban representative in their Nov. 30 meeting that he wanted the bank bombing to be blamed on anti-U.S. government militias. He said he supported the Taliban and believed in violent jihad, the agent said, and hoped the bombing would prompt a government crackdown, a right-wing response and, ultimately, civil war.”
He chose the Bank of America branch because of its name and because Oakland has been a center of recent protests, the declaration said. It said Llaneza told the agent he would “dance with joy” when the bomb exploded.
Llaneza and the agent met several times in December and January, and the FBI, following Llaneza’s suggestion, rented a storage unit in Hayward, the declaration said.
On Thursday night, agents said, Llaneza drove an SUV from the storage unit hauling 12 five-gallon buckets of chemicals, prepared by the FBI to look like explosives, to a parking lot in Union City, where he assembled the bomb in the agent’s presence.
He then drove to the bank, parked the SUV under an overhang near a support column of the building, retreated on foot to a safe distance, and pressed an FBI-constructed cell-phone triggering device that was supposed to ignite the bomb, the FBI said. Agents them moved in and arrested him.
In 2011, Llaneza was arrested on a weapons charge, pleaded no contest, and agreed to seek mental treatment. Deputy District Attorney Alaleh Kianerci said Llaneza was hearing voices and was apparently suicidal when he was taken to a local hospital.
The prosecutor said Steve Llaneza told police that his son, a native of Arizona, had been living with his mother in Arizona, had been in the Marines before being kicked out, and was very familiar with weapons. He had worked as a window washer in Arizona before losing his job in May 2010 and was taking medication for bipolar disorder.
Llaneza was a different, more stable person when he was in custody and on medication, said Cameron Bowman, his lawyer in the San Jose case.
“This new case shows he was not getting the mental help treatment he needed.”
-Bill at
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