Federal authorities on Wednesday announced the arrest of a Washington state man accused of aiding the suicide bomber who attacked a fertility clinic in Palm Springs last month, killing himself and injuring several others.
Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, of the Seattle area, was taken into custody Tuesday at New York’s JFK Airport after being deported from Poland, officials said at a news conference held at the FBI’s Los Angeles headquarters.
Park is charged with providing material support to a terrorist. Prosecutors allege he supplied 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate — a chemical compound used in explosives — to 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, who detonated a bomb outside the American Reproductive Centers on May 17.
The explosion destroyed the clinic, killed Bartkus, and injured several people.
Authorities believe Park and Bartkus shared an extremist ideology that people should not be born without their consent.
“The philosophy, this anti-life ideology … we do believe that is the reason they targeted this fertility clinic,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli. “They don’t believe new life should be created.”
According to the FBI, Park stayed at Bartkus’ home in Twentynine Palms for two weeks earlier this year, where the two allegedly conducted bomb-making experiments in a garage.
“During his stay at Bartkus’s residence, Park and Bartkus spent time in Bartkus’s room as well as in a detached garage ‘running experiments,’” prosecutors alleged in their affidavit.
Investigators later recovered chemicals and equipment commonly used to manufacture explosives at the residence.
Authorities said Park left the U.S. shortly after the bombing and traveled to Europe. His connection to Poland remains unclear. Officials said they believe he may have attempted to recruit others who shared his ideology through online forums.
Park, a U.S. citizen, was expected to make his initial court appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 15 years in federal prison.
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