A man who appears to be obsessed with the Unabomber has been arrested for threatening to blow up an FBI office in Los Angeles.
Mark William Anten, a 52-year-old man from Sun Valley, California, is accused of sending multiple threatening emails to the bureau dating back to July – including warning that he would bomb the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
Some of the messages were allegedly signed off referring to himself as the notorious Unabomber.
In a press release, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, said that Mr Anten emailed FBI agents on 2 November and claimed that he had been voted most likely in his graduating class to become the next Unabomber.
He allegedly went on to list similarities between himself and Ted Kaczynski – the man who terrorised America for 17 years, by carrying out a bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others.
Mr Anten also told the agents that he was working on a manifesto – much like Kaczynski – signing off the email “Unabomber”.
After receiving the email, FBI agents visited Mr Anten’s home later that month where he allegedly confessed to sending the messages.
He was told the stop but the communications continued – and escalated, according to the criminal affidavit.
On 5 December, the suspect allegedly sent a string of threatening emails to FBI agents, threatening to “Unabomb” the LA field office.
Ted Kaczynski flanked by federal agents in 1996— (AP1996)
The next day, prosecutors say he sent another email threatening a “mass murder spree”.
“I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would be very explainable by your actions,” the email read.
It was signed off “SuperMax or Death” – an apparent reference to the federal prison where Kaczynski spent the final two decades of his life.
Another email featured an image of a Google search for “how to make a dirty bomb,” according to prosecutors.
That same day, Mr Anten then allegedly visited the LA field office – a visit that was captured on surveillance footage – and sent an email taunting agents that he had been there.
Mr Anten was arrested at his home on Thursday morning and charged with a federal felony count of making threats by interstate communication.
He appeared in court in downtown Los Angeles that morning where he was ordered to be held without bond.
He faces up to five years in federal prison if convicted and is scheduled to appear in court for his arraignment on 11 January.
His apparent campaign is said to have begun soon after Kaczynski died by suicide in federal prison back in June.
The 81-year-old had been held in Colorado’s federal Supermax prison since 1998, when he was sentenced to life in prison for carrying out at least 16 bombings between 1978 and 1995.
He was transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, in 2021 due to ill health – and was found dead in his cell there in June.
