Man linked to Palm Springs fertility clinic bombing taken into custody at JFK Airport: sources
BROOKLYN (WABC) -- A man who allegedly helped a 25-year-old man manufacture the car explosion in Palm Springs, California, last month was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy Airport and appeared in federal court in Downtown Brooklyn.
The man, Daniel Park, a 32-year-old resident of Kent, Washington, was arrested Tuesday night at the airport in New York, and charged with providing bomb making materials to a terrorist.
During a brief hearing in Brooklyn on Wednesday afternoon, a judge ordered Park extradited to California to face charges there.
Park is accused of shipping the suspect six packages, containing more than 200 pounds, of ammonium nitrate from Seattle to Twentynine Palms.
Park allegedly shared the extreme pro-mortalism and anti-natalist beliefs of bombing suspect Guy Bartkus, posting about them since 2016 on internet forums.
Police say Park shipped 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus. He then allegedly paid for 90 more pounds of the precursor that was shipped ahead of the attack. Six packages of ammonium nitrate were shipped from Park in Seattle to Bartkus, authorities say.
Park allegedly spent two weeks visiting Bartkus in late January and February, running experiments in Bartkus' garage.
Days after the bombing, Park went to Europe, flying to Denmark and then Poland. He was detained in Poland on May 30 and deported Tuesday night. He arrived at Kennedy Airport and was taken into custody.
Park allegedly had recipes to create a bomb similar to Oklahoma City, and his social media showed he was attempting to recruit others online of like-minded ideology.
Bartkus, 25, of Twentynine Palms, California, died in the blast. He is believed to have been behind the attack, motivated by "nihilistic ideations."
The blast gutted the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic in Palms Springs and shattered the windows of nearby buildings along a palm tree-lined street. Witnesses described a loud boom followed by a chaotic scene, with people screaming in terror and glass strewn along the sidewalk and street. A body was found near a charred vehicle outside the clinic.
A senior FBI official called the explosion possibly the "largest bombing scene that we've had in Southern California."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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