Election Day Bomb Plot: Tappan Man Sentenced

TAPPAN, NY — Last fall, FBI agents learned about a Hudson Valley man who was writing letters and text messages about building a bomb to detonate in the nation's capital on Election Day. They stopped Paul Rosenfeld in a car in October, and he told them about a device he had built in his basement in Tappan.

Armed with a search warrant they searched the house and found a 200-pound explosive device. They also learned he had built and detonated smaller devices as experiments.

Rosenfeld's reason for these acts was to draw attention to his political belief in "sortition," a political theory that advocates the random selection of government officials. He said in a manifesto that America's political system had become evil.

In October, Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, called it a "twisted plan to draw attention to his political ideology by killing himself on the National Mall."

Rosenfeld had been ordering large quantities of black powder—an explosive substance—over the Internet, which he transported from a location in New Jersey to his home in Tappan. Prosecutors said he stated, among other things, that he used about eight pounds of black powder to construct the massive device, and that he installed certain components in it to ensure that he was killed in the blast.

FBI bomb technicians removed the bomb from the basement and transported it to a safe location. Inside the house, law enforcement agents also found, among other things, a fusing system for triggering explosive devices and what appeared to be empty canisters of black powder, prosecutors said.

Rosenfeld, 57, had been charged with one count of unlawfully manufacturing a destructive device, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and one count of interstate transportation and receipt of an explosive, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

He was sentenced Friday to 16 months in prison after pleading guilty in February of one count of manufacturing a destructive device and two counts of transporting explosive powder. He has been in prison since October, so might only be in prison a few more months before he is eligible to be transferred to a psychiatric facility, The Journal News reported. He had tried to commit suicide in prison, the newspaper reported.

He told the judge it was not a bomb but a pyrotechnic to draw attention to his suicide. Federal prosecutor Michael Krouse in response drew attention to the size and composition of the device and the place where Rosenfeld planned to set it off.

SEE ALSO: NY Man Planned Election Day Bombing In DC: FBI