ADL : Pennsylvania Man Sentenced in Terror Plot to Aid Al Qaeda

Pennsylvania Man Sentenced in Terror Plot to Aid Al Qaeda

November 9, 2007

A man convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda has been sentenced to 30 years in a federal prison and three years of supervised release.

Michael Curtis Reynolds, 49, was sentenced on November 6, 2007, by a federal district court in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Reynolds, from Wilkes-Barre, was convicted on four counts of attempted terrorist activity and one count of illegal possession of a hand-grenade.

He was arrested on the hand-grenade charge by the FBI in Iowa in December 2005 while trying to retrieve a bag filled with $40,000 that he believed was supplied by an Al Qaeda contact he met online. He was formally charged with terrorist offenses three months later.

Shannen Rossmiller, a Montana municipal court judge who helps FBI agents catch terrorists online, posed as Reynolds’ Al Qaeda contact. She began corresponding with Reynolds in 2005 about plans to target, among others, the Transcontinental Pipeline, which runs from the Gulf Coast to New York and New Jersey, and the Alaskan pipeline. During the trial, Reynolds claimed that he was trying to catch terrorists on the Internet to turn into the FBI, just like Rossmiller.

Prosecutors alleged Reynolds wanted to work with Al Qaeda to blow up U.S. pipelines in order to recall American troops in Iraq, who would need to return to help guard the nation’s energy infrastructure.

During the investigation, the FBI also tracked explosives to a storage locker in Wilkes-Barre.

In 1978, Reynolds was convicted of attempted arson after trying to blow up his parent’s house in Purdys, New York. He was given a conditional discharge after pleading guilty.

Asia One : US man convicted of pipeline, energy attack plan

US man convicted of pipeline, energy attack plan

Reuters | July 14, 2007

(Reuters) - A Pennsylvania man was convicted on Friday of plotting to blow up U.S. oil pipelines and energy installations and of attempting to enlist al Qaeda militants on the Internet to help carry out his plan.

A federal jury of six women and six men took a little more than an hour to convict Michael Curtis Reynolds, 49, on those charges and of possessing a hand grenade. He faces a maximum 57 1/2 years in prison.

The government accused Reynolds, from Wilkes-Barre, of scheming to attack the Alaska and Transcontinental pipelines and other energy installations to prompt a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Reynolds' purported plot was uncovered by Shannen Rossmiller, a former Montana magistrate who has been independently tracking extremists on the Internet since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In closing arguments earlier on Friday, defense attorney Joseph O'Brien said Reynolds had been attempting to communicate online with purported Islamist militants to expose them and not because he had any intention of working with them.

"His intent was the same as Rossmiller's," O'Brien told the court before U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik. "He was out there trying to uncover terrorist actions."

But Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gurganus said Reynolds had admitted he told no one of his online contacts with purported militants, who also included an FBI agent posing as an attack plotter.

"He actively offered his services to commit acts of terrorism," said Gurganus, dismissing Reynolds' claim that he intended to trap alleged militants on the Internet. "He really is a person who thought he could make money helping al Qaeda."

Reynolds was arrested on Dec. 5, 2005, at a remote rest stop in Idaho where he had been lured with the promise of cash for his operation.

The divorced father of three who had a succession of jobs in electronics, and once in a paintball field, was "kind of a dreamer, kind of a loner," O'Brien said.

He conceded that Reynold's methods of tracking down alleged militants on the Internet may have been less sophisticated than those used by Rossmiller and the FBI, but "that doesn't mean he's a terrorist."

"There is reasonable doubt as to whether Michael Reynolds did these things with the intent to support terrorist organizations," O'Brien said.

Times-Leader : Terror plot suspect’s trial opens

Terror plot suspect’s trial opens

Michael Curtis Reynolds, formerly of W-B, is accused of offering to help al-Qaida destroy pipelines and refineries.

BONNIE ADAMS Times Leader Correspondent | July 10, 2007

SCRANTON - The Internet sleuth who tipped the FBI about a former Wilkes-Barre man’s alleged terrorist plot to destroy pipelines and refineries testified Monday about the many online messages they exchanged while she posed as an al-Qaida operative.

FBI informant Shannen Rossmiller read from numerous correspondences she exchanged with defendant Michael Curtis Reynolds in which he allegedly sought to be paid for his services. In one, he is alleged to have said, “Let the sheik know my missions have never failed...”

Federal prosecutors on the first day of Reynolds’ trial argued that he thought he was corresponding with an al-Qaida representative as he plotted to disrupt U.S. fuel supplies. They have said Reynolds hoped attacks on the oil industry would disrupt the government, provoke opposition to the war in Iraq, drive up fuel prices and help al-Qaida to terrorize the United States.

Authorities believe Reynolds planned to blow up targets such as the Transcontinental Pipeline, a natural-gas pipeline that runs from the Gulf Coast to New York and New Jersey, as well as the Alaskan pipeline.

In lengthy opening arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney John C. Gurganis Jr. told the jury of seven men and seven women that Reynolds was attempting to provide support to the terrorist organization in 2005 before his arrest in Idaho. He said Reynolds planned to help al-Qaida cells he believed to be in Canada and the United States.

According to one e-mail entered as evidence, Reynolds called the United States an “accursed country” and said “it isn’t the land of the free, but the home of the new dictators.”

Defense attorney Joseph O’Brien painted a very different picture of Reynolds, 49, formerly of Scott Street, Wilkes-Barre. He said that while Rossmiller has been heralded as a hero, Reynolds is standing trial.

He described Reynolds as a “patriotic American” who wanted to uncover terrorists in the same manner as Rossmiller was trying to do by using the Internet. O’Brien said the evidence will show that Rossmiller and Reynolds were involved in the same effort to try to draw out those sympathetic to terrorists.

Rossmiller, who worked as a municipal judge in Montana, has previously posed as an al-Qaida operative. She helped federal agents set up a sting that led to the 2004 conviction of a Washington state National Guardsman for attempted espionage.

She testified Monday before federal judge Edwin Kosik in U.S. Middle District Court. Rossmiller, who now works for the Montana Attorney General’s Office, said she became interested in terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks as she recuperated from an injury for 5 weeks at her home in Montana. “It was just profoundly interesting to me,” she said.

Rossmiller said she encountered Reynolds online on the OBLCrew user group, which stands for Osama bin Laden. As she testified, Reynolds rested his chin on his hand and viewed copies of numerous e-mails and other electronic correspondence on a computer screen at the defense table. She said she worked in cooperation with the FBI as she developed an online rapport with Reynolds, whom she said used various e-mail addresses such as “longtermonly2” and sometimes signed his e-mails with the name “Fritz.”

Rossmiller posed as Hamza Ali Osman or “Hani” in her e-mails to Reynolds. She testified that she tried to get details of his plans and that Reynolds often used “code talk” in his e-mails. She said the objective for her and the FBI was to try to determine Reynolds’ intent and his targets. Rossmiller had been affiliated with the federal agency since 2004.

Reynolds previously told investigators that he had acted alone and didn’t trust law enforcement enough to notify them of his actions, according to court documents. Rossmiller said the FBI eventually instructed her not to communicate further with Reynolds.

Gurganis showed the jury one e-mail he said Reynolds wrote that discusses how fuel disruption in the United States following Hurricane Katrina caused fuel to double in cost and that Reynolds’ plan could recreate that fuel disruption on a larger scale. Rossmiller said that in one e-mail, Reynolds said he could “take out” the Alaskan Pipeline. The e-mail said fuel production could be disrupted for four weeks or longer and that a bus, four propane trucks and other items would be needed for the mission.

The federal indictment against Reynolds resulted from two grenades found in April 2005 in the Scott Street home Reynolds had shared with his mother, and another grenade found in a storage unit at Appalachian Self Storage on Heinz Drive later that year.

Rossmiller said that in the e-mails introduced as evidence Monday, Reynolds asked for more than $100,000 for his part in the plot. Federal prosecutors arrested Reynolds in Idaho as he approached a drop-off point where they had agreed to leave $40,000 for him.

Reynolds’ ex-wife was the first witness Gurganis called to the stand. Tammy Anderson of Connecticut was married to Reynolds until 1995. She testified that the couple lived with her parents in Tannersville and numerous other locations during their 13-year marriage.

Anderson said Reynolds became interested in “Soldier of Fortune” magazine and guns, and that he possessed a grenade that resembled an “ugly, green pineapple.” She said she last saw it in 1983 and didn’t know if it was a live grenade. Anderson said her ex-husband started to wear a lot of camouflage clothing while they were married and wanted to be a mercenary.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 8:30 a.m. today in federal court.

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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