#130: Explosives on a NYC Subway Track

Welcome to Court Watch #130. As always, we have our normal roundup of all this week’s most fascinating court filings below. But first, let's discuss the importance of a good and proper heave. 

The Accidental Almost Subway Bomber

When disposing of three explosive devices off the Williamsburg Bridge into the East River, it’s best to make sure all of them land in the water and not on the subway track directly below. 

Let’s talk about United States v. Gann.

According to court records, New Yorker Michael Gann purchased explosives online, which he picked up and tested in front of two friends on June 4. The explosives reportedly worked well enough to unnerve his friends, who went to the FBI. 

A day later, one of the witnesses placed a call – with FBI agents listening in – to Gann, who purportedly said he was scared after exploding one of the five explosive devices he had assembled near the East River in Manhattan. Gann reportedly said on the call that he was considering throwing the other explosives into the water or turning them over to the New York City Fire Department.

The case is being investigated by agents from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. While the charging documents do not press an ideologically-motivated reason for making the explosives, the affidavit does curiously mention that Gann told a friend,  “What kind of veteran are you? You see a problem going on in the neighborhood and you do nothing about it.” The witness reportedly described that Gann then gestured to a nearby Jewish school.

Law enforcement intercepted Gann later that day on June 5 while he was walking down the street with a bag on his shoulder. When the agents identified themselves as law enforcement, he allegedly told them that he was on the way to drop the bag off at the fire department and warned them not to light a match near it or “there could be a big fireball.”

Court records state that just one of the four remaining devices was recovered in Gann’s bag. The other three devices, Gann purportedly told FBI agents, he had tried to throw off the Williamsburg Bridge. Two successfully landed in the East River, but one ended up on the train tracks below. An image included in the criminal complaint shows an object circled by what appears to be railroad tracks and a sign that reads, “Platform for track crossover only.”

The arrest of Gann has not previously been reported. The U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting the case, declined an opportunity to comment. Gann’s lawyer took the same position.

In an interview with the FBI, Gann allegedly told agents that he used AI and videos online to learn how to assemble the devices. After having second thoughts, he reportedly called the supplier of the explosive materials to convince him to take the explosives back, but the supplier declined, leading him toward New York City’s waterways and the errant throw. Law enforcement recovered the explosive on the train tracks on June 5th.

A judge in New York, citing “Mr. Gann’s recent erratic behavior” and uncertainty over where the remaining explosives are, ordered for him to be detained pending trial.

With one would-be explosive story told, let’s move on to other hidden (story) bombs in this week’s dockets.

The Docket Roundup

• Speaking of strange bomb-related arrests, what’s going on in Ohio?

• While the LA Lakers may still be in search for one, the State of California got its guards back.

• The Justice Department may want to consider a department-wide subscription to Court Watch so they don’t miss things again. 

• Two plaintiffs claim Nike made a “brazen rug pull” when it sold unregistered NFTs through a subsidiary.

• The Administration’s budget submission may have gotten cross with the Justice Department’s filings, which said that the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman wasn’t fully dismantled. The President’s budget said it was "eliminated in its entirety.” A judge wants some answers.

• Call us a stickler for local rules, but when arguing constitutional authorities, it’s best to have a table of contents. 

• Last week, we noted that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Alaska had filed no public criminal cases in seven days. This week, they filed three cases, including one of a man who reportedly lied about U.S. citizenship while on a cruise ship and two other dockets about illegal drugs. 

• Courthouse News is doing the lord’s work. 

• A forensic scientist in Puerto Rico has a story to tell.

• It’s buried a bit, but in January, the USDA’s Inspector General pulled all the records for SNAP benefits, then cross-referenced them for ones that involved multiple states. One of the first criminal cases from that investigation popped up in Maine. 

• “No Rambo Tactics…make room for earspace,” one of the many adorable rules from a Texas federal judge.

• A Detroit business says it can only last until the end of June if the Trump Administration’s tariffs are not lifted. An appeals court set a schedule this week to hear arguments on the last day of July.

• There’s arguably little legal reason to include posters of Scarface in a criminal complaint when you already have seized pounds and pounds of Meth but we’re here for it.

• Might be time to ‘Stand Back, Stand By’ for new counsel. A federal judge wants to know if the Proud Boys’ lawyer is a felon.

• This week, a subscriber to Court Watch dropped everyone’s song of the summer, so let’s make it our song of the week

• The Justice Department sued the owners of a coffee shop in Oakland, claiming that the coffee shop refused to serve Jewish customers.

• Welp, this is the worst thing we’ve read this week.

• Stay for the kicker by one very annoyed D.C. federal judge.

• Like a drop serve, pickleball is a high-risk, high-reward business venture.

• A federal judge dismissed Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, and The New York Times in a whopping 132-page order.

• Read how court records became our editor’s mental floss.

• A conservative state legislator in South Carolina was charged for allegedly sharing ten child exploitation videos on Kik under the username “joebidennnn69.”

• Every defense attorney knows no good comes from jail calls.

• Here’s a case focused on a more than half-million-dollar tax return scam.

• A North Carolina ICE agent was dangerously close to running out of letters in the alphabet to use when listing the previous arrests of a Mexican man accused of illegal reentry into the United States.

• A judge is concerned that Corey Lewandowski hasn’t been definitive about saying whether he and other senior officials used non-government communications to discuss suspending people’s temporary protective status.

• A Russian man living in New York was charged for allegedly running a cryptocurrency, Evita, to launder 500 million dollars for sanctioned Russian entities.

• One scammer reportedly told a victim of a pig butchering scam after the victim caught on, “I feel for you. You’re a good pig, just not fat enough. But thank you for giving me half of your savings.” The feds tracked down part of the money.

• We imagine it gonna be kinda hard to argue emergency relief on immigration enforcement if it took three weeks to notice you never got assigned a magistrate judge. 

• A twenty-year-old Pakistani man living in Canada was extradited to the U.S. on charges of attempting to materially support ISIS. The FBI says the man planned to enter the U.S. and attack a Jewish community center in New York on the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel. He was allegedly inspired by ISIS and reportedly wrote, “if we succeed with our plan this would be the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11.”

• Scammers are using child exploitation crime accusations to exploit people. 

• The feds began a RICO case against a gang based in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine known as the “Trinitarios.”

• An affidavit by a senior aide at the State Department gives insight into the administration’s plan to reshape the foreign service.

• $2.9 million is an awful lot of cash to drive around and deposit at ATMs.

• One visitor at Smith Rock State Park in Oregon allegedly tried to bring a rattlesnake home with him.

• American Oversight wants to FOIA the DHS and ICE records related to President Trump’s order to deploy soldiers in L.A.

• The dockets delivered another contender for the worst flight ever.

• Here’s the criminal complaint for the University of Michigan researcher who Customs & Border Patrol say tried to smuggle in biological materials.

• FBI Director Kash Patel is suing a former FBI agent for defamation after the retired agent made false comments about Patel’s work location on Morning Joe.

• Be warned, Charleston wine moms, you can only get your sommelier training from one place.

• The owner of a New Jersey lab is in trouble for purportedly shipping scientific equipment to Russia via Kazakhstan in violation of sanctions.

• Two Capitol Police officers are suing the Architect of the Capitol to install the memorial honoring officers who served on January 6th.

• A doctor was duped into working for a fake company for several months, which ended up being a group of scammers who stole nearly four hundred thousand dollars.

Thanks for reading. A final scheduling note. Our editor, Seamus Hughes, will be at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in New Orleans most of next week. He’ll give a training to a couple hundred reporters on how to find stories on the federal docket. Seamus is also on a much fancier and more polished panel for the New York Times talking about tracking more than 400 lawsuits filed against the Trump Administration. If you’re a reporter that’s going to the Big Easy, make sure to drop him a note (and ask for a free (!) Court Watch koozie).

We’re gonna try our best to knock out a court record roundup next Friday, but please be understanding if we take our first one-time publication break in 36 weeks.