CHICAGO — A Maine teenager allegedly found with several shrapnel-packed explosives in his home had been plotting online to travel to Chicago and commit “mass murder” at area places of worship, federal prosecutors said this week.
Xavier Pelkey, 18, of Waterville, Maine, was arrested on Feb. 11 at the home he shares with his mother, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed in the U.S. District Court in Bangor. His ultimate plan was to commit the acts and be killed by police, authorities said.
Inside a backpack in his bedroom, FBI agents found three homemade explosive devices that had been fashioned with fireworks and taped together with staples, pins and thumbtacks to “increase the amount of shrapnel propelled by an explosion if the devices were detonated,” the complaint stated.
Pelkey, who was charged with unlawful possession of a destructive device, first told agents he’d taped the fireworks together because he wanted to make a “bigger boom,” according to the complaint. When asked why the metal items were in the devices, Pelkey didn’t respond.
At a bond hearing earlier this week, prosecutors told U.S. Magistrate Judge John Nivision that the devices “were intended to be used in a calculated act of violence that was designed to take many lives.”
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Wolff, the FBI spoke with two witnesses — both juveniles — who had corresponded on Instagram with Pelkey, who was using the pseudonym Abdullah.
“Juvenile No. 1 described a plot that he, Abdullah and another individual had devised that involved going to a mosque in Chicago and committing, frankly, mass murder,” Wolff said, according to a transcript of the Tuesday hearing.
Wolff said the plot involved “separating the men in this mosque from the women and children and killing all the men, (then) potentially moving on to another mosque or synagogue and doing the same thing and then ultimately culminating in being shot by police.”
Wolff said the first witness told investigators that Abdullah had told him about an explosive he built to “get more people.”
The second witness told agents he’d also corresponded online with Abdullah, who said he “had gathered material to create fireworks to attack someone and he wanted to die fighting for Allah,” Wolff told the judge.
Wolff did not provide any further details at the hearing, including whether Pelkey had any specific targets or travel plans. An FBI affidavit describing the investigation was filed under seal for reasons that were not explained in open court.
In asking that Pelkey be held without bond, Wolff said that although he is young and has a relatively minor juvenile record, Pelkey appeared to have been involved in a “very serious, very disturbing set of events” and clearly was a danger to the community.
“Obviously he is a young man, but we also know that it appears that he has an ideology that he’s developed where he has aligned himself with radical thinking under which he is willing to commit acts of violence ... that would culminate with him martyring himself,” Wolff said, according to the transcript.
Pelkey’s attorney, Christopher Maclean, asked the judge for release on electronic monitoring or home confinement, saying his client was a “bright young man” who has a loving, supportive family.
Pelkey lives with his mother, grandparents, and a 16-year-old autistic brother in an apartment in downtown Waterville, a town of 15,000 about 50 miles west of Bangor, according to Maclean and public records.
Though he’s spent some time in juvenile detention, there was nothing in Pelkey’s background “that would suggest that he’s ineligible for release” under these circumstances,” Maclean said, according to the transcript.
Maclean also called the government’s accusations of a terrorist plot in Chicago “posturing to some degree” and that once all the facts come out it will be clear “this is a much more mundane situation” than what’s been alleged.
“He certainly disavowed any of the desires or intentions that the government has suggested during this detention hearing and is fully committed to adhering to whatever strict conditions the court sets here,” Maclean said.
But Nivision denied bond, siding with prosecutors in declaring Pelkey a danger to the community and potential flight risk. In his ruling, the judge noted both the disturbing nature of the explosives that were allegedly found in Pelkey’s home as well as the allegation that he “was involved in activity that was designed to produce significant injury to many people.”
“I find that there are no conditions that would adequately or reasonably address the appearance issue and would adequately address the safety concern,” Nivision said, according to the transcript.
Maclean did not respond to requests from the Tribune for comment.
The allegations of the Chicago plot, which were first reported by the online news site News Center Maine, prompted an outcry from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, which called for state and federal hate crime charges to be filed against Pelkey.
“This disturbing case highlights the real threat posed by anti-Muslim bigotry, antisemitism and other forms of hate,” CAIR Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement Wednesday.
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