Weapons suspect linked to NYC hate crime

A man suspected of having pipe bombs and firearms in his apartment made statements implicating himself in anti-Semitic vandalism of houses, cars and synagogues, police said.

But the attorney representing the man, Ivan Ivanov, said on Monday that his client is Jewish.

Investigators were trying to determine whether Ivanov planned to use his arsenal against the synagogues and other sites he had defaced, a ranking police official said.

Officers went to Ivanov's home after he reported a gunshot wound to his finger Sunday, police said.

Investigators, who said the wound to his finger was self-inflicted, discovered what appeared to be a homemade bomb and several other devices and weapons.

A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Ivanov told police he planned to use the explosives on a fishing trip, detonating the devices underwater to bring the fish to the surface.

Investigators seized his computer and were searching the files, the police official said.

Ivanov had been suspected of spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti in September on three houses, two cars and on the staircases of two synagogues in his neighborhood, but had not been charged, the official said. After the weapons were discovered, he made statements implicating himself in the graffiti case and was arrested on hate crime charges, the official said.

Ivanov, 37, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Monday on charges of aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, as well as criminal possession of a weapon and reporting a false incident, prosecutors said. Bail was set at $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said.

Adrian Lesher, a lawyer appointed to represent Ivanov, said that his client "basically led police to the apartment in a situation that was almost calculated."

Lesher said Ivanov is a linguist and Jewish, but did not elaborate. "It makes it less likely that he is a threat. He is an educated person," he said.

Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Kerry J. Pukhaber said Ivanov is a Bulgarian national who has a green card.

Police were also trying to reach Ivanov's roommate, a medical anthropologist and associate professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Other residents in the Brooklyn Heights building said the professor was doing research out of the country.

The building and others in the tree-lined neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge were evacuated for several hours while the bomb squad investigated early Sunday.

A court hearing for Ivanov was set for Jan. 25, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office said.