The Estranged family of Cesar Sayoc, an accused bomber, wants him to get some help

Mr. Sayoc has a long history of minor skirmishes with the authorities, but he is now facing a series of particularly serious charges related to the wave of attempted bombings, including the illegal shipment of explosives and threats against a former president. Mr. Sayoc will eventually be prosecuted in Manhattan and could be sentenced to a maximum sentence of almost 50 years in prison if convicted. He should not plead on Monday afternoon to appear before Judge Edwin G. Torres in the Miami Federal Court.

Sarah Baumgartel, a federal public defender in New York who was appointed to represent Mr. Sayoc, declined to comment on Sunday.

It is not known how, or even if, Mr. Sayoc will dispute the charges against him, that the authorities have brought after him corresponding medico-legal evidence. Families like Ms. Villasana began to describe him as a man who lived a broken life, from the time when Mr. Sayoc was a boy and his father had left the family. He became an introverted teenager who loved collecting things, eating in his room and falling asleep with television, said Mr. Sayoc's family, and they came to believe he was dyslexic. He was upset with his parents about his behavior and Ms. Villasana said that her brother had spent at least some time in a boarding school.

After leaving college, apparently without any degree, the maternal grandmother of the siblings, who lived near Hollywood, Florida, took Mr. Sayoc against the will of his mother, who thought he was old enough to to be alone. At that time, Mr. Sayoc was an enthusiastic bodybuilder, said Ms. Villasana. Once, she opened her grandmother's fridge and found out what she thought was Mr. Sayoc's steroid supply. She confronted him, telling him that he could get in trouble with their grandmother.

"I said:" What are you doing? " She says. "He was always in the kitchen. I loved his protein proteins.

Still, Mr. Sayoc's life was relatively stable when he was with his grandmother, said Ms. Villasana, but after he ceased to reside there, his life became more nomadic, roaming the country. working with men's magazines. His sister has regularly lost track of him. Until a journalist asked him about Sayoc's divorce in 2004 in Oklahoma, she was unaware of her brief marriage.