Alleged co-conspirator in fertility clinic bombing shipped nearly 300 pounds of ammonium nitrate: Officials
The FBI has arrested a co-conspirator in last month's car bombing outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic, with officials saying he provided large quantities of ammonium nitrate to the suspect killed in the blast.
Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, has been charged with conspiracy to manufacture an unregistered device and terrorism, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Park was arrested Tuesday night at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York after being detained in Poland on May 30, officials said at a press conference Wednesday. Park allegedly fled to Europe four days after the bombing, officials said.
The primary suspect in the case, 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, was found dead next to the detonated vehicle, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's LA field office said last month.
Park allegedly shipped approximately 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an explosive precursor commonly used to construct homemade bombs, from Seattle to Bartkus in California as part of a plot related to the pair's nihilist beliefs, according to officials. Park also allegedly paid for an additional 90 pounds of the substance in the days leading up to the Palm Springs attack, officials said.
Federal investigators allege the materials were used in the car bombing. Investigators have already conducted searches at Park's home, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Park also allegedly spent two weeks visiting the main suspect's home in late January and early February of this year, the officials said. The two are believed to have been conducting experiments together in the main suspect's garage.
Park and Bartkus followed a "pro-mortalism, anti-natalism, and anti-pro-life ideology," officials said Wednesday, adding the pair believed people should not be born without their consent and "nonexistence is best."
"Park's social media posts indicate that he was attempting to recruit others of like-minded ideology and discuss these things on internet forums," Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, said in a press conference Wednesday.
"We must strive to prevent anything like this from happening again. We wanna learn everything about the ideology involved in this," Davis said.
The FBI alleged Park had recipes to create a bomb similar to the one used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and that he knew how to make fuel oil bombs.
Investigators said there is no indication there were other targets. FBI analysts are still working to determine how much explosives were used in the bombing outside the clinic, officials said at the press conference.
The suspect and co-conspirator appear to have found each other in chat forums online as like-minded individuals, according to officials.
Park is expected to appear in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday afternoon before he's transported to California, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors are asking that he be held without release. The suspects targeted the fertility clinic because they believed new life should not be created, investigators said at the press conference Wednesday.
"The subject had nihilistic ideations, and this was a targeted attack against the IVF facility," Davis said last month. "Make no mistake, we are treating this, as I said yesterday, as an intentional act of terrorism."
While Park allegedly traveled to Bartkus' house in January and February, investigators do not believe he was in the area at the time of the bombing.
At least four other people were injured in the explosion last month. The explosion led to a fire and the collapse of a nearby building.
The clinic, the American Reproductive Center of Palm Springs, said no members of its staff were harmed, and its lab -- including all eggs, embryos and reproductive materials -- were undamaged in the attack.
The clinic is currently seeing patients at a temporary location across the street from its main building.
"We're grateful to share that consultations, follow-ups, and ultrasounds are continuing with minimal disruption, and our team has made a nearly seamless transition. We're also in the process of finalizing our new IVF lab and surgery center, and we look forward to resuming those services very soon," the clinic said in a statement on social media last week.
