Explosive Find In Brooklyn Leads To Break On Bias Crimes

Police sources say a man who had gathered an arsenal of pipe bombs and weapons in a Brooklyn Heights brownstone apartment has admitted to painting a series of swastikas in the neighborhood last fall that marked a spike in hate crimes around the city.

Ivaylo Ivanov, 37, was arrested and charged late yesterday after police discovered firearms and bomb-making equipment along with seven pipe bombs in the attic apartment he shared with a nationally renowned AIDS researcher, Michael Clatts.

Ivanov was taken into police custody after he accidentally shot off the tip of his finger. He at first told police officers on patrol in the neighborhood that he had been shot by someone else, and then admitted shooting himself, prompting officers to check his apartment.

Police sources said he later confessed to spraying 19 swastikas on Remsen Street, where he lived, in September.

The swastikas were found on the steps of two synagogues along with leaflets, carrying swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs, found under the windshield wipers of cars along the block.

One has to wonder what Clatts knew given the size of the apartment and the close proximity that the two men were living in. Investigators will be sure to check out this particular angle. In the meantime, Ivanov seems to have some serious mental health issues, which I'm sure his defense lawyers will play up.

Gothamist has much more.