"Adams man allegedly plotted to attack a university; Father tipped off FBI on son’s terror leanings" by Travis Andersen and Astead W. Herndon Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent July 13, 2015
A tip to the FBI from a Boston police captain about his son’s desire to fight for the Islamic State prompted federal agents to monitor — and then arrest — the 23-year-old in connection with an alleged plot to attack a university, according to law enforcement officials and court records unsealed Monday.
Alexander Ciccolo, of Adams, was inspired by the Boston Marathon bombers and allegedly plotted with a witness working for the FBI to set off explosives and shoot up a cafeteria at the unnamed university, according to legal filings unsealed in US District Court in Springfield.
It's another FBI frame-up, complete with authority-supplied cut-out.
He was arrested on July 4 in Adams after allegedly receiving four firearms from the FBI witness, and he remains in custody. A detention hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
This is one of the plots they claim to have "foiled!"
Ciccolo is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm. An arraignment date has not been set and his lawyer could not be reached for comment.
According to the legal filings, a close acquaintance of Ciccolo told the FBI in the fall of 2014 that Ciccolo expressed an interest in traveling to Iraq or Syria to fight with the Islamic State.
Related:
ISIS: Made in Washington, Riyadh – and Tel Aviv
ISIS Is A Fake US/Israeli Created "Terrorist" Group
ISIS is a US-Israel creation to demonize Islam
The Islamic State (ISIS) and Israel are Allies
Why Does ISIS Fit In So Perfectly With The PNAC Plan?
ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op
US-NATO Proxy War in Iraq and Syria: US Financing and Training of “Moderate” ISIS Rebels in Syria
What?
What do you mean "covert CIA/FSA training facilities that have ties to ISIS [are] in both Jordan and Turkey?"
Also see: ISIS™
The acquaintance told the FBI that Ciccolo had a history of mental illness and had become obsessed with Islam, court records show. In addition, the acquaintance said Ciccolo had asserted that “faith is under attack,” that he was “not afraid to die for the cause,” and that America is “Satan,” according to the legal filings.
This isn't even good propaganda anymore. It's just crap.
Law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation, and who requested anonymity, said the acquaintance referenced in court papers is Ciccolo’s father, police Captain Robert Ciccolo, a 27-year veteran of the force who has been estranged from his son for several years.
In a statement, Ciccolo’s family said they were “saddened and disappointed to learn of our son’s intentions” but also “grateful that authorities were able to prevent any loss of life or harm to others.”
I wonder where he is going to be off to next and what name they will give for his next mission.
According to federal authorities, the FBI learned after receiving the father’s tip that Alexander Ciccolo maintained a Facebook profile under the name Ali Al Amriki and posted messages expressing an interest in martyrdom and a desire to fight for the Islamic State.
Then he's an idiot, waving a big red flag for the FBI. Or this is fiction.
One posting on Oct. 27, 2014, showed what appeared to be an image of a dead American soldier and a message that read, “Thank You Islamic State! Now we won’t have to deal with these kafir [unbelievers] back in America.”
The FBI later arranged for the unidentified witness to meet with Ciccolo on June 24 in Pittsfield, according to court records. It is not clear in court filings how the FBI witness won Ciccolo’s confidence.
I wonder what else is going on in Pittsfield(?). No danger to the public?
During the meeting, Ciccolo said he planned to attack two bars and a police station in another state and that he planned to use pressure cooker bombs or portable microwave bombs, a filing stated. Pressure cooker bombs were used in the Boston Marathon attack.
The other state thing is key. That makes it a federal crime.
But during a second meeting on June 30, Ciccolo said that he instead wanted to target a “state university,” since there were more people there, and that he would allow any Muslim students present to “help, sit tight, or leave,” according to a filing.
Ciccolo told the witness that he would need firearms and pressure cooker bombs, court documents said, and that he would target dorms and the cafeteria, executing students and showing the carnage live on the Internet.
He told the witness that he previously owned a revolver and a shotgun, according to a court document.
Remember, he is supposedly mentally ill -- and his cop father didn't give a f***?
The legal filings did not specify which college Ciccolo allegedly targeted or which state it is located in, and the FBI and US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz’s office declined to elaborate.
Why? All bullshit? All going to fall apart when we actually see the "evidence?" Just more mind-manipulating garbage, isn't it?
Also during the second meeting, Ciccolo told the witness that he wanted “tons of ammo” for the assault rifles he would use in the attack and that he would not mind getting trapped in a standoff, since “we win or we die,” a court filing said.
He added that he would place explosives on campus before the attack and strike the cafeteria at lunchtime, when it would be crowded, according to a filing. He said “the Boston Marathon bombing gave him the idea of what to do.”
They are going to flog that false flag crisis drill for all its worth.
He also said he wanted to strike the university no later than July 31, according to federal investigators. In addition, he described the June 26 shooting attack at a Tunisia beach resort, which killed 38 people and for which the Islamic State claimed responsibility, as “awesome” and “a huge accomplishment,” a filing stated.
Oh, yeah? He like the Mossad hit squad false flag if not outright fake?
In an instant message chat with the witness on July 2, Ciccolo said the university cafeteria was “very sinful and has a crowd,” as well as escape routes, according to court records. Ciccolo also allegedly told the witness to obtain the firearms for the attack, while he would get the powder for the explosives.
Also on July 2, Ciccolo discussed attacking an unidentified bar that advertised a promotion to celebrate the recent US Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, writing that the bar “supports the [antigay slur] so even better to destroy them,” a legal document said.
You guys just jumped the shark. What's next, he's a Nazi?
The following day, Ciccolo bought a pressure cooker at a North Adams Walmart and told the witness in another instant message, “Allahu Akbar!!! [God is Great] . . . I got the pressure cookers today,” court records show.
When the witness asked if Ciccolo wanted money to purchase the black explosive powder, Ciccolo allegedly replied, “Allah will provide.”
Look like entrapment, never mind the delusional kid.
So Allah is in fact the FBI, huh?
On July 4, the FBI witness supplied Ciccolo with two rifles and two handguns, and Ciccolo was arrested while carrying the weapons back to his apartment, according to federal authorities. He also had a five-inch blade in a sheath on his belt.
Talk about a SET UP! They GAVE HIM THE GUNS and then BUSTED HIM! We have SEEN THIS SCRIPT BEFORE!
At least they didn't claim they "missed" it.
A search of Ciccolo’s apartment yielded several Molotov cocktails, which contained shredded Styrofoam soaked in motor oil, as well as two machetes and a long curved knife, according to federal officials. Ciccolo had informed the witness that the foam and motor oil would cause fire from the explosions to stick to victims’ skin, a legal filing said.
After his arrest, Ciccolo agreed to speak with FBI agents, and while he would not discuss the guns, he “reaffirmed his support for ISIL,” a court document stated.
Ciccolo also had a routine medical screening at the Franklin County House of Correction, and during the session he stabbed a nurse in the head with a pen and caused bleeding, according to court records.
Oh, so he was close by and in county, huh? Even though Adams is in the Berkshires?
Previously, Ciccolo was convicted in February of drunken driving.
On Monday on Murray Street in Adams, where Ciccolo resides, neighbors said that local police and FBI agents blocked the road on July 4 and that some investigators were dressed in hazmat suits.
Ongoing Jade Helm or what?
Lila Zustra, 29, began noticing Ciccolo a couple of months ago and said that he regularly walked past her home in traditional Muslim attire.
Can the guy be waving any more red flags?
“He was quiet and a loner, but we’d always wave,” she said. “You just never expect it to be so close.”
Ciccolo’s arrest came one month after FBI agents and Boston police fatally shot Usaamah Rahim, 26, of Roslindale, who allegedly plotted to murder law enforcement officers in an Islamic State-inspired attack. Officials have said Rahim lunged at investigators with a military-style knife before he was shot in a parking lot near his home. Two of his associates are facing federal terrorism-related charges in connection with that case.
Looks like I will have to examine that case at some point.
The court records unsealed Monday did not suggest any connection between Rahim and Ciccolo. The FBI and Ortiz’s office declined to comment when asked if the cases were connected.
A spokeswoman for Ortiz declined to say if Ciccolo would be charged with any terrorism-related offenses.
I think we get a staged and scripted show trial. The kid is then told good job and is on his way.
--more--"
NDU:
"Bail denied for Adams man held in terror plot" by Milton J. Valencia, Evan Allen and Monica Disare Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent July 14, 2015
Of course. You don't want him out there talking to people. Just go along, son.
SPRINGFIELD — The Western Massachusetts man accused of plotting to bomb a local university in support of the Islamic State terror group was declared a “risk to the community” and ordered held without bail Tuesday, after prosecutors argued that Alexander Ciccolo had developed a hatred toward the United States and was intent on murder.
I love my country and what it was meant to be; however, the actions of generations of governments now are despicable.
Am I going to kill anyone over it? No. But I won't stand in the way of the mob, either.
“He came to espouse those horrific thoughts about killing innocent people and Americans around the world,” Assistant US Attorney Kevin O’Regan said during a federal court hearing. “He adopted the most vile beliefs, and began to act on them.”
After his cop father(?) alerted the FBI and they inserted an instigator to frame this patsy.
It was Ciccolo’s own father, Boston police Captain Robert Ciccolo Jr., who brought his son’s alleged extremism to the attention of the FBI, and also told agents that his son had a long history of mental illness.
They must think we are ill to keep believing this stuff.
Alexander Ciccolo was arrested July 4 after he took possession of four firearms from a cooperating witness, who told authorities the 23-year-old was inspired by the Boston Marathon bombings.
Oh, is that what they are calling $cum informants that entrap and frame people now? "Cooperating witnesses?
He has been jailed since his arrest.
But Ciccolo’s troubled history goes back further than the February drunken-driving conviction that caused him to be charged as a felon.
I love good fiction.
His parents’ divorce records, filed in Suffolk Probate and Family Court, show a young Alexander Ciccolo exhibiting increasingly violent behavior at school.
He's his father's son.
When he was attending Wareham schools, he was suspended five times for aggressive and violent behavior, and eventually arrested when he threatened to kill another student, and then lunged at the boy with a butterfly knife, affidavits in the case show.
He was hospitalized at least once for psychiatric treatment, and attended a state-funded day psychiatric program for adolescents with emotional difficulties that interfere with their ability to attend school.
Ooooooooh-boy.
Looking mind control experiments. I know some of you think that vis way out there, and I did once. There is more than heaven and earth. There is unbelievable evil down here. Exhibit A: underexposed elite sex rings for starters.
On Monday, Robert Ciccolo’s family asked for privacy.
Pffft!
During Tuesday’s hearing, prosecutors showed a video of Alexander Ciccolo’s post-arrest interview with an FBI agent, in which he says he supports the Islamic State, and calls the United States an enemy of Islam for failing to follow Sharia law.
Ciccolo called the victims of Islamic State terrorists “criminals, the lowest of the low.”
In the video, Ciccolo sits in the corner of an office cubicle, and rambles before debating an FBI agent who suggests that Islamic fighters attack innocent civilians.
Ciccolo did not speak during the court hearing. His mother and stepfather sat in the front row of the courtroom, and Ciccolo whispered “bye” and “I love you,” and waved to them as the hearing ended.
?????????? See ya' soon?
They left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.
Grudge noted.
Ciccolo’s attorney, David Hoose, had sought to have Ciccolo released on bail under the condition that he wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and stay in the custody of his mother, who lives in a remote section of Berkshire County. He would not say where.
Hoose said that Ciccolo has an extraordinary relationship with his mother, though he would not elaborate. He would only say that Ciccolo’s mother and stepfather “do not condone violence.”
What is this?
Hoose also drew a distinction between the portrayal of Ciccolo as a terrorist, and the actual charges he faces: possessing firearms as a felon, based on a past arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol. Hoose said that Ciccolo could not be charged for his beliefs, or his statements in support of the Islamic State, no matter the subject matter.
We are AmeriKa now, buddy. We have reached the point of Soviet stuff. Pure propaganda in the pre$$ and ma$$ media.
“They are nothing more than beliefs,” he said, and noted that the FBI gave Ciccolo the weapons without any payment. “The court has to be able to segregate out what part of this is belief, what part of this is actual actions.”
Oh, I NOTED IT. They will have to kill me because I'm not taking it.
But US Magistrate Judge Katherine A. Robertson said Ciccolo has a history of acting out in violence, noting he stabbed a nurse in the head with a pen after his arrest.
She decided to detain Ciccolo because of the alleged motive for his attacks, she said, and his assertions that he would join Islamic State fighters abroad if he did not carry out a terror attack at home.
Bye, kid.
--more--"
What do we have, the new Adam Gadahn here (old one claimed dead; I wonder what his new assignment is after his credibility and cover were blown)?
UPDATE:
"Officials weigh national security with public’s right to know in terrorism cases" by Milton J. Valencia and Astead Herdon Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent July 24, 2015
ADAMS — A swarm of law enforcement officers, some in hazmat suits, had converged on the rundown apartment on Murray Street on the Fourth of July, and neighbors in this small town amid the mountains of Western Massachusetts had no idea why.
“We were thinking the worst,” said David Rowe, who lives on nearby Summer Drive.
But he would not know why an FBI-led team was at the home of Alexander Ciccolo, not for another nine days. It would take more than a week for law enforcement officials to publicly announce that they had arrested the 23-year-old Ciccolo — who was carrying a bag with four guns — for an alleged plot to carry out a terrorist attack.
Authorities said they kept the arrest secret for national security reasons, but legal and national security analysts say that the time it took for law enforcement officials and the courts to publicize Ciccolo’s case is extraordinary, for any crime.
And because it was a SILLI set-up!
With concerns of domestic terrorist plots on the rise, the analysts say that the case shows the difficult balance that the courts and law enforcement officials have to strike in weighing national security threats against a public’s right to know.
“There was so many rumors,” said Lila Zustra, who lives near Ciccolo on Crotteau Street. “A lot of people were very upset. . . . It makes me scared because you don’t expect it.”
A spokeswoman for the US Attorney’s office in Boston, Christina Diorio-Sterling, said that law enforcement officials chose not to immediately release the details of Ciccolo’s arrest because they “wanted to avoid jeopardizing the investigation by unnecessarily publicizing it.”
PFFFFFFFFT!
A federal prosecutor requested July 6 that the court file be unsealed, which would have meant that Ciccolo’s arrest would be listed on a public document. But US Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson did not unseal the case until a week later, after a second request was made.
Juliette Kayyem, a former Homeland Security official in the Obama administration, said that arrests like Ciccolo’s are bound to increase as federal law enforcement officials intensify investigations into supporters of the Islamic State terrorist group who pose a threat, and she supports the administration’s decision to charge such offenders in the criminal court system, rather than in a military court.
But she said that the courts will have to balance national security concerns against public records and access laws, and against evidentiary rules that govern the judicial system.
Sorry, you can't see those. State secrecy.
“We have rules for this, for keeping evidence withdrawn, saving names, and we should use those rules for severe circumstances,” said Kayyem, a former Globe columnist. “There are rules about imminent danger and I think we have to depend on the courts to ensure they are truly a third and protective branch of the federal government.”
In addition to the lag in revealing Ciccolo’s arrest, federal law enforcement officials also altered a video that was played at Ciccolo’s detention hearing, by adding a black circle over his face, when releasing the video to the public.
The video, of Ciccolo’s post-arrest interview with an FBI agent in which he discusses his support for the Islamic State, was used by prosecutors to argue that he is a threat and should be held without bail. An unaltered version was played in court.
Sterling said that prosecutors sought to have the manipulated version of the video substituted as the official court record based on the FBI’s concern that it could become a propaganda and recruitment tool for terrorists if it became public.
This really is absurd!
Ciccolo’s arrest came one month after a separate FBI investigation of Islamic State supporters in Boston resulted in a suspect being fatally shot. Police say Usaamah Rahim, 26, of Roslindale plotted to kill law enforcement officers in an Islamic State-inspired attack, and allegedly lunged at investigators with a military-style knife as they tried to arrest him.
Two of Rahim’s associates are facing federal terrorism-related charges in that case.
I'm going to have to look into that in August.
There has been no suggestion that Ciccolo was connected to Rahim or any other plot. Ciccolo’s father, Boston police Captain Robert Ciccolo Jr., brought his son’s alleged extremism to the attention of the FBI, and also told agents that his son had a long history of mental illness.
James Forest, director of security studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, said authorities probably wanted to explore whether Ciccolo had any ties to other plots before making his case public.
“It is not merely a tradeoff between an open court system and national security concerns,” he said. “Agencies have to evaluate the potential value and impact of all kinds of intelligence.”
But these situations aren’t new, according to Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law.
“These questions, they were always embedded in alleged terrorism cases, and they’re taking on a new, heightened scrutiny,” Greenberg said.
--more--"
UPDATE: Judge won’t release unredacted video of terror suspect
