Philadelphia Inquirer : Wilkes-Barre man indicted in terror plot

Wilkes-Barre man indicted in terror plot

By John Shiffman | INQUIRER STAFF WRITER | October 4, 2006

A federal grand jury charged a Wilkes-Barre man yesterday with offering to help al-Qaeda blow up oil pipelines and refineries, a plot he allegedly hatched in a Yahoo chat room bearing Osama Bin Laden's initials.

The terror charges brought against Michael Curtis Reynolds are rare, but a Justice Department spokesman in Washington said statistics were not kept on the number of native-born U.S. citizens who have been charged since 2001 with providing material assistance to terrorists.

"We have what appears to be a lone wolf who aspired to be an al-Qaeda sympathizer," said Brian W. Lynch, the FBI assistant special agent-in-charge for terrorism in Philadelphia. "He was doing things that gave us pause and we had to take him seriously."

Reynolds, 48, was arrested Dec. 5 after he tried to retrieve $40,000 "that he believed constituted payments from al-Qaeda in exchange for his services," the indictment says. He was detained at a rest stop on an interstate highway in southern Idaho.

Since then, he has been held in the Lackawanna County jail on unrelated weapons charges. He was not immediately charged with terrorism because such cases must be reviewed in Washington.

But the terrorism accusations became public in February, when The Inquirer published excerpts of a transcript from a court hearing in which a prosecutor told a judge that Reynolds planned to blow up oil refineries.

Reynolds has denied that he is a terrorist. His lawyer, Joseph A. O'Brien, declined to comment.

Authorities say Reynolds entered a Yahoo chat room called "OBLcrew" last fall, met someone he believed to be an al-Qaeda member, then exchanged e-mail with that person privately.

Four postings from a "Michael Reynolds" were still on the Yahoo OBLcrew public chat room last night.

A message from Oct. 25 said: "It is true America has overstepped its bounds in invading Iraq. Those serious enough to do something about it should e-mail... . Contact soon... . We both want something, let's talk."

The next day, the same person wrote: "Still awaiting someone serious about contact. Would be a pity to lose this idea."

On Nov. 3, someone responded, offering to talk. Further details weren't posted in the chat room, which is available to anyone who registers with Yahoo.

Although Reynolds believed that he had been communicating online with an al-Qaeda operative, he was, in fact, chatting with Shannen Rossmiller, a 36-year-old municipal judge who lives in Conrad, Mont., and who regularly monitors extremist Muslim Web sites, assisting the FBI. In 2004, she helped win a conviction against a National Guardsman in Tacoma, Wash.

Rossmiller declined to comment yesterday.

Thomas A. Marino, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, declined to comment, a spokeswoman said. Marino issued a news release in which he praised the FBI for stopping Reynolds "from following through" with alleged terror acts.

In private e-mails, Reynolds identified himself as "Fritz Mueller," officials said.

The indictment alleges that Reynolds "offered to assist al-Qaeda in engaging in acts of terrorism within the United States by... identifying targets, planning terrorist attacks, describing bomb-making methods, among other services."

Reynolds sought to enlist "al-Qaeda members to carry out violent attacks against pipeline systems and energy facilities in an effort to reduce energy reserves, create environmental hazards, increase anxiety, and require" federal officials to spend money to protect them, the indictment said.

In addition to being charged with providing material support to al-Qaeda, Reynolds was charged with soliciting explosives to use to destroy natural gas pipeline facilities.

Reynolds also was charged with knowingly distributing, through the Internet, information about the construction and use of explosives, and with possession of hand grenades. One grenade charge is related to an April 23, 2005, case in which police were called to his mother's home in Wilkes-Barre after a relative discovered the hand grenade[.] During a pretrial hearing last year, Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganus Jr. said that Reynolds planned attacks against oil refineries "as a plan to disrupt governmental function, to change the government's actions in foreign countries, and to impact on the national debate about the war."

At the time, Gurganus said said Reynolds' letters, computer drawings and e-mails spelled out his plot to detonate trucks filled with propane along the Alaska pipeline. He also allegedly planned to blow up sections of a transcontinental natural-gas pipeline that runs from the Gulf Coast through Pennsylvania to New Jersey and New York City.

Shortly before his arrest, Reynolds was fired from his job at a semiconductor firm in southern Idaho. He had been living at the Thunderbird Inn in Pocatello, Idaho.

Reynolds, a self-professed computer expert, has filed repeated motions to the court, demanding a trial.

Contact staff writer John Shiffman at 215-854-2658 or jshiffman@phillynews.com. Staff writer Alfred Lubrano contributed to this article.



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