On
April 30, five self-proclaimed anarchists who had been active with the Occupy
Cleveland Movement were taken into custody by the FBI on suspicion of hatching
a plot to bomb a four-lane highway bridge in Ohio. The eldest of them,
35-year-old Anthony Hayne, pleaded guilty in July and agreed to testify for the
government. On Wednesday last week, three of his alleged co-conspirators,
namely, 26-year-old Douglas Wright, 20-year-old Brandon Baxter and 20-year-old
Connor Stevens - also entered a guilty plea before U.S. District Court Judge
David Dowd. The four thus all admitted guilt to the charges of conspiracy to
use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction
and attempted use of an explosive device to destroy property used in interstate
commerce. The fifth suspect - 23-year-old Joshua Stafford, is still undergoing
a psychiatric evaluation for competency to stand trial.
According
to FBI accounts, the five young men who acted out of anger at corporate America
initially just wanted to have some smoke grenades with which to distract police
as they topple financial institution signs atop high rise buildings in downtown
Cleveland. Eventually though, their talk of getting back at Wall Street got
them to discussing plans on how to bomb various bridges and physical targets in
and around the Cleveland metropolitan area over the course of several months.
Finally, they agreed in the Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge
as their first designated target. This bridge crosses from Brecksville,
Ohio, to Sagamore Hills, Ohio, over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. They
also agreed that for the job, they need to buy C-4 explosives contained in two
improvised explosive devices to be placed at strategic spots in the target
bridge and remotely detonated.
Of
course, neither the bridge nor the public were in any real danger from the five
young would-be-bombers. The FBI got through the plot just in time. According to
an FBI affidavit, they paid a criminal informant more than $5,000 for information
on the five men whom he met at an anti-Wall Street Occupy Cleveland rally
beginning October 2011. Also through that informant, the FBI was able to post
an undercover agent who posed as an explosives dealer before them. The
undercover FBI agent was then able to sell them inoperable detonators and dud
plastic explosives. The authorities finally arrested them on April 30 after
having determined that the five planned to really proceed with the attack on
the bridge.
Defense
counsels for the suspects had questioned the role of the paid informant and
intend to raise those questions again at their sentencing tentatively scheduled
for early November. They contend that the entire investigation was a case of
entrapment, with the FBI informant guiding the way for the five’s eventual
downfall with the law.