A paralegal in a Queens district attorney’s office has been arrested and charged with trying to build a bomb that he planned to use against a migrant shelter across his apartment.
Derek Klever, 27, was arrested Thursday and charged with multiple counts, including making a terroristic threat, criminal possession of a weapon, and endangering the welfare of a child, WNBC reported.
“I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but it’s for Queens County,” he allegedly told an unnamed acquaintance, according to the criminal complaint against him. “This is a war. I wish I had a big enough one to blow them back to Venezuela.”
Klever told his friend that he had bought fireworks and was going to combine the contents with nails and gasoline and was considering using a drone to drop his bombs on the migrants at the shelter.
“I’m not trying to kill but injure,” he reportedly said. “I need to teach them a lesson.”
He also claimed to have tested a version of his bombs. According to WABC, Klever was upset about the noise at the small hostel New York is using as a temporary shelter.
Klever’s fiance consented to a search of their apartment earlier in the week, police said. At that initial search, they found a BB gun in a child’s bedroom and fireworks in a closet in another bedroom, according to WNBC.
Additional searches uncovered explosive materials from disassembled fireworks that had been wrapped in foil, along with nail cartridges wrapped in foil, BB pellets, and wire, the complaint said.
Klever pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Thursday and was ordered to return to court on October 4.
The Queens District Attorney’s Office declined comment except to say that Klever had been fired.
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