The 28-year-old accused of terrorizing New York and New Jersey with a series of bombings has been moved out of the hospital and into a New Jersey state prison, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Corrections said Wednesday.
Ahmad Rahimi, a U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan, was moved into the prison early Tuesday evening, said Matt Schuman, the corrections department spokesman. Rahimi is facing both state and federal charges in connection with what authorities said was a terror spree motivated by a range of radical Islamic influences. He is suspected of a bombing that injured dozens in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan and of placing several other devices in New York and New Jersey that did not hurt anyone.
Rahimi had been recovering in the hospital from gunshot wounds he suffered in a confrontation with police, and he made his first appearance in court in Elizabeth, N.J., last week via a video feed. He is charged there with attempted murder and weapons counts stemming from his firefight with police. In federal court, where he has not yet appeared, his charges include using weapons of mass destruction and bombing a public place.
Schuman said Rahimi would normally have been sent to the Union County Jail but was taken instead to a state prison under a rule in the New Jersey code that allows suspects who have not yet faced a trial to be housed in the state prison system for “safety and security purposes.” The Union County Jail has faced well-publicized troubles over the years. In 2007, two inmates escaped and left a note mocking a corrections officer, who was later found dead of an apparent suicide. Two other inmates were able to leave their cells and freely roam through a detention area in 2011, according to the Newark Star Ledger.
An official familiar with the case said the facility to which Rahimi was moved is the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.
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