Home
Contact Us
[Posted Nov 13, 2007]
SUSPECT IN FEDERAL TERRORISM CASE SENTENCEDNovember 13, 2007 – Michael Curtis Reynolds of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for offering to help al-Qaida detonate propane trucks along the Trans-Alaskan and Transcontinental Pipelines, along with blowing up the Standard Oil company in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and the Williams Refinery in Opal, Wyoming. The FBI arrested Reynolds after authorities said he tried to meet a purported al-Qaida contact in a sting operation in Pocatello, Idaho. However, the al-Qaida operative turned out to be Shannen Rossmiller - a former judge from Conrad, Montana who posed as an al-Qaeda banker. Rossmiller promised the money, arranged a date and time for the rendezvous, and notified the FBI who set up the sting. Reynolds expected to receive $40,000 to finance the alleged plot.
Reynolds testified at trial that he was trying to expose terrorist cells. However, the FBI obtained search warrants for his computers and his e-mail accounts, finding e-mails and other information that, according to a court document, spelled out his bomb plans. The Philadelphia RCFL provided expert digital forensics in support of the investigation.
Acting U.S. Attorney Martin Carlson issued a statement saying, “Today’s sentence sends a clear message: Individuals such as Reynolds, who operate outside the law to impose terror, represent a threat to our safety. Such would-be terrorists will be dealt with severely under our system of laws. I commend the FBI and everyone involved in the prosecution of this case for bringing him to justice.”
Reynolds was convicted on two counts of providing material support to terrorists, soliciting a crime of violence, unlawful distribution of explosives and unlawful possession of a hand grenade. He was acquitted of another court of unlawful possession of a hand grenade. This was not Reynolds first brush with the law. He was convicted of attempted arson and menacing in connection with an attempt to blow up his parents' house in New York State in 1978.
[Philadelphia RCFL web site ]