Christian Toro and Tyler Toro pled guilty to manufacturing and possessing a destructive device, and conspiring to do so, in connection with their stockpiling of explosive materials and manufacture of a destructive device.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As admitted in court today, Christian Toro and Tyler Toro sought to build a destructive device that could have caused great damage. Christian Toro used a minor student to assist him in this endeavor. Thanks to the excellent work of the FBI and the NYPD, no one was injured as a result of this grave conduct, and the defendants now await sentencing for their crimes.”
According to the allegations in the Complaint, the Indictment, and statements made during court proceedings:
Between approximately October 2017 and February 2018, Christian Toro and Tyler Toro conspired to build and possess a destructive device at their residence in the Bronx, New York (the “Residence”). Christian Toro, a former teacher at a high school in Harlem, New York (the “School”), paid students from the School for their assistance in manufacturing the destructive device, doling out approximately $50 per hour in return for the students’ work dismantling fireworks and storing the explosive powder contained within those fireworks in containers. Christian Toro also had on his School laptop a copy of a book that provided instructions for, among other things, manufacturing explosive devices.
On February 15, 2018, law enforcement agents searched the Residence pursuant to a judicially authorized search warrant. In a bedroom shared by Christian Toro and Tyler Toro, law enforcement agents recovered numerous components for use in building a destructive device and other dangerous substances, including: (i) a glass jar containing low explosive powder; (ii) a strip of magnesium metal; (iii) approximately twenty pounds of iron oxide; (iv) approximately five pounds of aluminum powder; (v) a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum powder, the key ingredients for thermite; (vi) approximately five pounds of potassium nitrate; (vii) a cardboard box containing firecrackers; and (viii) metal spheres, which can be used as fragmentation for a bomb.
Also in the Residence, law enforcement agents found a handwritten diary labeled with Toro’s name, which stated, among other things, “WE ARE TWIN TOROS STRIKE US NOW, WE WILL RETURN WITH NANO THERMITE” and “I AM HERE 100%, LIVING, BUYING WEAPONS. WHATEVER WE NEED.” Agents also recovered a page inside a notebook found in the Residence labeled “Operation Flash,” with a ledger appearing to delineate the hours worked and payment owed to one of the School’s students. In addition, a note that said “under the full moon the small ones will know terror.”
The New York Times reported: “We were going to use the black powder and other materials to make an explosive,” Christian Toro told a judge on Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Yet even after the guilty pleas, the brothers’ motive for building a bomb and what their target might have been remained unclear. “I just want you to know that I had no intention of using it, let alone on anyone or anything,” Christian Toro told Judge Richard M. Berman. Tyler Toro also contended that he had never intended to harm anyone.
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Christian, 28, and Tyler, 28, both of the Bronx, New York, each pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture and unlawfully possess a destructive device, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison; one count of unlawfully manufacturing a destructive device, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison; and one count of unlawfully possessing a destructive device, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison
