Philly Inquirer : Wilkes-Barre man indicted in terror plot Wilkes-Barre man indicted in alleged al-Qaeda plot He says he tried to help nab terrorists. The feds say he had his own plot.

Wilkes-Barre man indicted in terror plot Wilkes-Barre man indicted in alleged al-Qaeda plot He says he tried to help nab terrorists. The feds say he had his own plot.

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.