An accomplice in the recent bombing of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs was arrested by FBI agents at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.
Daniel Park, 32, was taken into custody after being deported from Poland. He is accused of supplying ammonium nitrate to the 25-year-old primary suspect, Guy Edward Bartkus, who died in the blast on May 17.
Park, of Kent, Washington, spent months plotting the attack with Bartkus, traveling to his California home for about two weeks to experiment with bomb-making materials in his garage, United States Attorney Bill Essayli said.
Park shipped another 90 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a chemical that can be used to make bombs, just days before the attack, and used an AI chatbot to assist with building the device.
FBI officials called the explosion an act of terrorism and possibly the largest bombing in Southern California's history. No human embryos were damaged at the American Reproductive Centers, which provides services like in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to help couples struggling to conceive children.
The blast injured four people and damaged the fertility clinic and other buildings in the vicinity. A cellphone at the crime scene linked Park to the attack.
A search of Park's home uncovered a large volume of explosive materials and handwritten chemical equations, including "an explosive recipe that was similar to the Oklahoma City bombing,” FBI Assistant Director in charge Akil Davis said.
Park is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist. He appeared at a federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, where he waived a probable cause hearing until his prosecution in California.
He was arrested in New York following his deportation from Poland, where he had fled four days after the bombing.
"Bringing chaos and violence to a facility that exists to help women and mothers is a particularly cruel, disgusting crime that strikes at the very heart of our shared humanity," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
"We are grateful to our partners in Poland who helped get this man back to America and we will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law."
The two suspects met on the internet, where they exchanged nihilistic, anti-natalist views calling for humans to be wiped out.
"They don't believe that new life should be created, [or] that it should not be created without consent," Essayli said. "That is the reason that we believe they likely targeted the location that they did. That's why we're calling this a terrorist attack. The location was not a coincidence."
