A 20-year-old Florida man, Joshua Ryne Goldberg, was arrested and charged Thursday in connection with an alleged plot to set off an explosion at a 9/11 memorial event in Kansas City, Missouri.
He is just the latest person caught by federal authorities cruising the Internet for wannabe domestic terrorists.
Authorities said Goldberg, of Orange Park, had been in contact online with an individual and gave details about making a pressure cooker bomb, instructing him to fill it with shrapnel such as nails and metal objects dipped in rat poison to make them more lethal,
according to WJXT-TV.
That person online turned out to be a federal informant and authorities were monitoring their interactions.
Goldberg was charged with distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction, said U.S. attorney A. Lee Bentley. He could receive as much as 20 years in prison for the offense, said a
statement from Bentley.
Goldberg reportedly told the informant to place to the bomb in a backpack and place it near a crowd, said
Buzz Feed News, a tactic similar to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
"There's going to be chaos when it goes off," said Goldberg. "Shrapnel, blood and panicking."
Authorities said Goldberg targeted the Kansas City 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb event where firefighters and first responders gather to honor victims of the terrorist attacks because it would draw a large crowd even though it would not be held until Sunday,
said First Coast News.
The FBI took notice of Goldberg when he bragged that he encouraged the attempted attack on the Muhammad art exhibit and contest held in Garland, Texas on May 3. That attack was foiled by a police officer and security guard who killed Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi after the men opened fired outside the event.
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