Two young men are accused of setting off a large commercial firework inside a Harvard Medical School laboratory early Saturday morning and causing an explosion that damaged part of the building, federal prosecutors announced on Tuesday.
The men, Logan David Patterson, 18, of Plymouth, Mass., and Dominick Frank Cardoza, 20, of Bourne, Mass., are each charged with one count of conspiracy to damage, by means of an explosive, in connection with the incident at the Goldenson Building at Harvard Medical School, which houses a research lab in the school’s Department of Neurobiology, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said in a news release.
The device was detonated inside a wooden locker on the fourth floor of the research laboratory. The blast set off a fire alarm and prompted a campus police officer to respond. As the officer approached, two people fled from the building. The officer tried to stop them before entering the building to investigate the alarm, prosecutors said.
Surveillance video captured two men, dressed in dark clothing with their faces covered, walking toward the campus shortly before 2:30 a.m. and lighting what appeared to be Roman candle fireworks, according to the charging documents.
Cameras then recorded two men climbing a chain-link fence into a construction zone and scaling scaffolding to reach the roof of the Goldenson Building. At 2:45 a.m., the campus police received the explosion alert; minutes later, footage showed the pair exiting the building at ground level and running off in opposite directions.
The explosion affected a small section of hallway on the fourth floor and caused no structural damage to the building, Harvard officials said.
Later, a video camera at an intersection near the Goldenson Building recorded a man who prosecutors said was Mr. Cardoza tossing his pants in a trash bin. Separately, the other man, who was identified as Mr. Patterson, was seen entering a Wentworth Institute of Technology building to charge his phone, according to the documents.
After news coverage of the explosion, Wentworth police officers interviewed at least four students and visitors who identified the men in the video footage as Mr. Cardonza and Mr. Patterson, according to court records.
Both men were expected to appear in federal court on Tuesday, though it was unclear at what time they would appear. Neither had a lawyer listed in their court files.
If convicted, the men each face up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.
The motivation behind the explosion remains unclear.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
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