Prosecutors say man arrested with arsenal plotted to kill Biden
Washington, Oct 23 (efe-epa).- A 19-year-old man arrested in North Carolina after being found in possession of guns, explosives and child pornography weighed killing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and has admitted being near the former vice president’s home on one occasion, according to court documents that came to light this week.
So far, the only charges against Alexander Hillel Treisman are connected to the pornography.
The information about his alleged terrorist inclinations was included in a federal district judge’s order that Treisman be held without bail.
Filed earlier this month after Treisman was indicted by a federal grand jury for possession of child pornography, the order was made public Thursday by WBTV television in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Treisman, who also used the alias Alexander S. Theiss, was arrested May 28 in Kannapolis, northeast of Charlotte, after employees at a bank contacted police about a white van abandoned in the parking lot.
Officers from the Kannapolis Police Department (KPD) responded to the call and spotted an assault rifle, a box of ammunition and a container of explosives when they looked through the van’s windows.
The bank manager asked the KPD to remove the vehicle and a subsequent inspection of the interior turned up a Sig Sauer AR rifle, an Intratec 9mm Luger handgun, a Lower AR receiver, a Kel-Tec Sub-2000, a .22 caliber rifle marked ArchAngel and a Russian Mosin Nagant M91/30 bolt action rifle.
Police also discovered some $509,000 in cash, drawings of swastikas and of planes crashing into buildings and books about topics including bomb-making, improvised weapons and Islam.
The KPD alerted federal authorities and when Treisman returned to the parking lot to retrieve the van, officers arrested him for possession of a concealed weapon.
Federal agents arrived soon after the suspect was taken into custody and took charge of the case. They found, according to the indictment, 6,721 images and 1,248 videos of child pornography on eight different digital devices belonging to Treisman.
On April 15, the defendant posted to the platform iFunny a meme with the caption “should I kill joe biden?”
Between March and May of this year, Treisman searched the Internet for information about the location of Biden’s Delaware home, night-vision goggles, spare parts for rifles and the gun laws in various states.
The report cited by the judge in denying bail for Treisman also cited actions taken by the defendant, such as buying an AR-15 assault rifle in New Hampshire and traveling to a Wendy’s restaurant within 6km (4mi) of Biden’s residence.
Treisman told federal agents he had “an interest in terrorist incidents and mass shootings.”
A year ago, according to the court filing, Treisman created a note on his phone that outlined “a plan to perform a mass shooting at a mall food court on Christmas or Black Friday,” while an April 2020 video from his cellphone shows him at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, where 58 people were killed in 2017 in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
“That’s the one, that’s where they did it. Nice,” Treisman said while driving by the scene of the massacre. EFE
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