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WASHINGTON (AP) – In the hours leading up to his arrest, while the federal authorities hid and secretly accumulated evidence, Cesar Sayoc was in his element: classic spinning and success of the Top 40 in a nightclub where he had found a DJ job.
While he entertained patrons from a dimly lit gazebo overlooking a stage of the Ultra Gentlemen's Club, where Halloween decorations were suspended in anticipation of a costume party, he could not know that the investigators had taken advantage of his own mistakes to defend himself.
He certainly did not know that lab technicians had linked DNA to two packets of bombs that he had been accused of having sent to prominent Democrats to a sample previously collected by the United States. authorities of the state of Florida. Or that a fingerprint match had appeared on a separate mail that the authorities say he sent.
And he was probably unaware that investigators of his social media accounts had found the same spelling mistakes on his online publications – "Hilary" Clinton, Debbie Wasserman's "Shultz" – than on the mailings he'd be soon charged to send.
Prosecutors who accused Sayoc of five federal crimes said Friday that fervent supporter of President Donald Trump had unknowingly left a profusion of clues, allowing them to pause decisively in a police investigation. from one ocean to the other on bombing Violence during the election period. Bubble-wrapped manila envelopes, addressed to Democrats such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and intercepted from Delaware to California, contained vital forensic evidence that investigators claimed to have benefited from Sayoc's four-day arrest. after the start of the investigation.
"Criminals make mistakes, so the more the police can detect them, the more likely they will be, and that seems to be what happened here. "Said former Attorney General Justice Aloke Chakravarty. pursued the case of the bombing of the Boston Marathon.
But it was not always obvious that such a break would occur, at least not on Monday, when the first package arrived: a homemade bomb delivered by mail to an estate in Bedford, New York, belonging to billionaire liberal activist George Soros. The same day, Sayoc, still under the radar of the forces of order, tweeted a message in a message: "The world is waking up to the horrors of George Soros."
Additional packs followed, delivered the next day for Clinton and Obama, then to the CNN cable network, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Vice President Joe Biden, and other targets. of conservative anger.
Each additional delivery created more discomfort. But together, they also provided more leads to the FBI, which exploited each pipe-pipe to find clues in a lab in Quantico, Virginia.
As parcels arrived, technicians took a decisive step: a fingerprint and DNA left on a package sent to Representative Maxine Waters, a California Democrat and one of the intended recipients of the homemade bomb, and DNA on a piece of homemade bomb intended for Obama. The FBI said it had not identified any other possible match in the evidence it had examined.
In addition, the FBI stated in its social media that the traffic in online conspiracy theories, parody accounts and name-calling included some of the same spelling mistakes as those found on the 13 parcels that He had been instructed to send.
According to the authorities, these clues led them to a 56-year-old man with a criminal record who had already filed for bankruptcy and who appeared to be living in his van, taking a shower on the beach or at a local fitness center.
While the FBI was working day and night and Americans were discussing the harsh political climate and the question of whether Trump had fanned the flames with his rhetoric, Sayoc continued as if nothing had happened, so that was not the case. he used Twitter to denigrate targets like Soros. It was not uncommon for amateur bodybuilding and the former stripper whose accounts on social networks are dotted with memes supporting Trump and posts defaming Democrats.
Thursday from noon to 9 pm As law enforcement officers moved closer and settled in a mail sorting center in Opa-locka, Florida, Sayoc worked as a disc jockey at a West Palm nightclub. Beach where he had found work in the last two months. There, he broadcast his music from a dimly lit small kiosk overlooking a stage with performers dancing underneath. Dedicated photos of lightly dressed and naked adult artists were glued to the walls like wallpaper.
"I did not know that guy was crazy like that," said Stacy Saccal, the club's coach. "He never talked about politics. It's a bar. We do not talk about politics or religion in a bar, you know?
But Scott Meigs, another club DJ, had a different experience.
He said Sayoc had been talking politics to everyone at the club for two weeks, preaching the need to elect Republicans in the November elections. "I thought he was passionate about the upcoming elections."
The next morning, he was arrested near an auto parts store in Plantation, Florida, north of Miami. On the other side of the street, Thomas Fiori, a former officer of the federal forces, said he saw about 50 armed officers swarming around a man standing in front of a white van whose windows were covered with stickers supporting Trump and criticizing the media, including CNN.
They ordered him to the ground, said Fiori, and he did not resist.
"He had this look:" I finished, I surrender, "said Fiori.
Laurie Kellman, Ken Thomas, Jill Colvin, Michael Biesecker, Stephen Braun and Chad Day, editors of the associated press; Ellis Rua, Terry Spencer, Kelli Kennedy and Curt Anderson in Florida; Jim Mustian, Deepti Hajela, Tom Hays and Michael R. Sisak in New York; and Raphael Satter in Paris contributed to this report.
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