Massive Corruption Sweep Busts Politicians Trying To Rig Republican NYC Mayor's Race

Earlier this morning, law enforcement carried out  a massive corruption sweep in NY, with multiple arrests of local politicians.

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes.

The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said.

FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m.

“I have no idea,” Halloran, in handcuffs, told a Post reporter when asked if he knew why he was being arrested.

Others arrested includeBronx Republican Chairman Joseph Savino and Queens GOP Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone, and they are all being accused of trying to rig the mayoral election.

As alleged, Senator Malcolm Smith tried to bribe his way to a shot at Gracie Mansion - Smith drew up the game plan and Councilman Halloran essentially quarterbacked that drive by finding party chairmen who were wide open to receiving bribes. After the string of public corruption scandals that we have brought to light, many may rightly resign themselves to the sad truth that perhaps the most powerful special interest in politics is self-interest. We will continue pursuing and punishing every corrupt official we find, but the public corruption crisis in New York is more than a prosecutor's problem."

The 28-page complaint offers up a bunch of juicy details, but it boils down to money for access:

Council member Halloran was to receive $20,500 while Tabone and Savino received $40,000 in bribes with a promise of $40,000 more.

If Halloran's name sounds familiar, it's because he was a blowhard who alleged that Sanitation workers purposefully slowed down snow removal during the blizzard a few years back. Investigations found no evidence of any kind of slowdown. And the FBI had already been investigating Halloran when they sniffed out the potential bribery for ballot access plan.

Smith's name should sound familiar as well, as he was part of the breakaway Democrats in the State Senate who gave temporary control of the Senate to Republicans in a coup against Democratic leaders. Smith joined a group of independent Senators, earning himself and his staffers a pay raise in the process. Smith's defection also enabled Gov. Andrew Cuomo to maneuver and exploit the divisions in the Senate to advance his own agenda with less opposition - including on matters like the same sex marriage act and the NYS SAFE Act.

Not only does this scandal threaten the disrupt the political balance in the State Senate, but this scandal threatens to upturn the entire Republican campaign for NYC mayor, as key behind-the-scenes officials are involved and it's entirely possible that others could find themselves perp-walked. Tabone has been working for the campaign of John Catsimatidis.

These people are instrumental in getting the campaigns of multiple candidates off the ground and working support for candidates already in the running. It could potentially derail existing campaigns for those who are in the race and indirectly helps those Democrats who are already in the race, including Democrat City Council honcho Christine Quinn.

Expect Tabone and Savino to flip on Smith and Halloran who are the big fish in this particular scandal in exchange for less time behind bars.

Trenton NJ Mayor Tony Mack, 6 Others Arrested In Federal Corruption Probe

Trenton New Jersey Mayor Tony Mack and six others have been arrested in connection with an ongoing federal corruption probe. The Trenton Democrat has been under investigation for the past several months, and the FBI had previously issued search warrants on the mayor's office, personal residence, and several locations of relatives to Mack.

Joseph "JoJo" Giorgianni, a top campaign contributor, and six others were also taken into custody. Specific charges against the suspects are expected to be outlined by Paul Fishman, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, later Monday.

Mack and the others arrested Monday were brought to the FBI office in Hamilton for processing and are scheduled to appear in federal court.

The arrests are the latest development in an ongoing federal investigation into alleged corruption within Mack's administration, which has been marked by accusations of nepotism and reckless spending. In July, FBI agents searched offices in Trenton City Hall a day after raiding the mayor's home. They also searched the home of his brother, Ralpiel Mack, and that of Giorgianni.

Mack's administration has been in turmoil from Day 1, staggering from one crisis to another. A housecleaning of staff at City Hall opened the door for Mack's own appointees, who quickly turned it into a revolving door. Some left over questions about their credentials, others to face criminal charges.

The arrests stem from $119,000 in bribes connected to a parking garage contract.

"The investigation revealed evidence of a conspiracy among the defendants and other to corrupt certain functions of Trenton City government in favor of a purported developer seeking to building a parking garage on City-owned property in exchange for cash payments totaling approximate $119,000, a total of $54,000 that the defendants actually accepted in one way or another and another $65,000 that they anticipated accepting," according to the criminal complaint filed today.

The complaint indicates the FBI had been investigating Mack since September 2010, just a few months after he took office. At least two cooperating witnesses are cited in the complaint and the FBI made extensive use of wire taps on the phones of Mack, Giorgianni and the cooperating witnesses.

The complaint also indicates there's a fourth "co-conspirator" named only as "CC-1" who was a Trenton city employee. That person has not been charged.

Mack was taken into custody at his Berkeley Avenue home in the city around 6:30 a.m., Woodruff said. Further charges in the public corruption are possible against Mayor Mack.

FBI Investigation of Trenton Mayor Mack Continues

Last week, I noted that the FBI was carrying out searches of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, a Democrat. Those searches included stops at his home, office, and his brother. At the time, the FBI wasn't saying what they were looking for.

Today, they've announced that they're looking into bribery, fraud, extortion and money laundering charges.

Federal authorities also are investigating vendor contracts with the city, during a time frame that stretches nearly to the day Mack took office, the documents show.

The FBI investigation became public last week when agents conducted raids on Mack’s home and City Hall, among others.

Agents last week also searched the Ewing home of Joseph “JoJo” Giorgianni, who donated nearly $5,000 to Mack’s campaign during the run-up to the 2010 election.

Giorgianni is named in the documents as well, with federal authorities searching for records of any correspondence between him and city officials.

Nearly 30 agents searched City Hall on Thursday and left carrying boxes, milk crates, computers and documents. Officials have not said what the authorities found.

The FBI could not be reached for comment last night, and a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Mack is out of town on a vacation and is due back Monday, and a message left on his cell phone last night was not immediately returned. The mayor has not been charged with a crime, and it’s unknown if Mack has hired a lawyer.

City business administrator Sam Hutchinson, who has stepped in as acting mayor in Mack’s absence, could not be reached for comment on the FBI probe last night. “We’re just steering the ship while the captain’s away,” Hutchinson had said earlier yesterday.

The scope of the FBI’s search for evidence is in line with what opponents such as George Dougherty, an attorney representing a former city employee in a whistle-blower lawsuit against Mack, have been alleging since Mack took office.

Mack is currently on vacation for a couple of weeks (he's scheduled to return July 30), and has left the business administrator Sam Hutchinson in charge. Among the issues that critics have had with Mack is that he's replaced a bunch of those business administrators and put his cronies in charge of city operations at a time when the city can ill afford it (as if any city can really afford cronyism).

Horrific: Massacre At Colorado Movie Theater; 12+ Killed

It's absolutely horrific to learn of the news this morning about the massacre in Aurora, Colorado overnight at a showing of the Batman movie. At least 12 people were killed when the gunman stormed into a movie theater during the showing of the Dark Knight Rises. Dozens more were injured. A suspect is now in custody and has been identified as James Holmes, 24, and that he was a former student at the University of Colorado.

Authorities recovered four guns -- a rifle similar to an AR-15, a shotgun and two Glock handguns, a senior official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms familiar with the investigation told CNN. It was unclear how many of the weapons were fired, the official said.

After the suspect told police there was a bomb at his apartment, officers went there and found a "very sophisticated" booby trap inside, Aurora police Chief Dan Oates told reporters. However, the senior ATF official said no explosives were found.

Some kind of device, either a smoke bomb or tear gas, was activated before Holmes opened fire.

People (particularly those on twitter) need to take a step back from their keyboards and think about what they're writing.

1. A paucity of information means that your first impressions may end up being completely wrong.
2. The discussions about gun control or concealed carry wait while investigators figure out what's going on here. They're dealing with what's an apparently still active crime scene at the guy's apartment; it's apparently booby trapped in a manner that may take some time to disable.
3. The guy apparently withdrew from medical school last month; could have been a 4th year.
4. Political affiliation may have absolutely nothing to do with the heinous crimes committed. Or not.
5. Mental status may have something to do with it. Or not.

There's more to worry about now than the political fallout at the moment; there's a whole bunch of people who are sitting in hospitals around Aurora and Denver - they were spending an evening hoping to be entertained by a new movie and instead are facing a life and death struggle after being shot. Our thoughts and prayers should be with them, their loved ones, and their families and friends.

The politics of firearms, gun control, mental health, etc. can wait. Of course, since we're into instant gratification, everyone will now proceed to figure out the guy's motivations, make claims that wont hold up to scrutiny, or otherwise make calls for this action or that.

It seems that some folks have already made up their minds about the events - one person tweeted that this is the reason to expand concealed carry, as though having one more person with a firearm in a chaotic situation would have saved the day. The eyewitness accounts seem to indicate that the guy started firing on the crowds and they didn't know whether this was part of the movie or not since they were in the midst of a battle scene on screen. By the time they realized this was all to horrifyingly real, the crowds began to rush out.

Witnesses reported that bullets came through the walls into adjacent movie theaters, which means that even if there were other people at the movie theater carrying firearms under concealed carry, it wouldn't have mattered to someone in the adjacent theaters if bullets were flying in different directions. The shooter wouldn't have been in that particular theater. It was chaos as people didn't seem to realize the deadly events transpiring in their midst.

I've also seen reports that among those injured were kids as young as 3 months. That's just nuts on so many levels. Other Twitters are wondering why 6 year olds were at a midnight showing of Batman.

Also, I can't tell just how many people were shot and how many were injured just trying to get out of there, but at least 20 of the injured were shot:

Of the wounded, at least 20 were being treated at the University of Colorado Hospital, said spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery. All of the wounded suffered from gunshot wounds, which ranged from minor to critical, she said.

"They're arriving by police, by ambulance. Some are walking in," she said.
The victims being treated there ranged in age from 3 months to 45, the hospital said.

Denver Health Center had six patients from the shooting, one of them in critical condition, five in fair, said Shelly Davis, house supervisor.
Swedish Health Center spokeswoman Nicole Williams said her hospital was treating three people, two of them in critical and one in fair condition. A fourth patient was on the way, she said.

Parker Adventist Hospital was treating two people for minor injuries, according to a spokeswoman.

Hundreds of police officers descended on the theater, and the FBI has joined the investigation.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by today's events.

While this is going over in Colorado, closer to home, police in Paramus NJ arrested a guy on a warrant from a neighboring town - and found a significant stash of weapons:

Police entered the house and found Eng, 43, asleep in his bedroom with a fully loaded 9 mm handgun under his pillow and two other handguns on his nightstand, Brock said.

On their way in, officers found two bags of high-capacity, fully loaded firearm magazines and hundreds of rounds of ammunition by the front door, police said. In the kitchen, they found three military-style ammunition boxes that contained thousands of rounds of ammunition, Brock said.

Police ultimately recovered a total of five long-barrel firearms, three handguns and 3,500 rounds of ammunition. A 90-round capacity “drum” magazine was also seized, along with assorted firearms equipment including scopes, ammunition cans, holsters and rifle stocks, Brock said.

Before acting on a warrant out of Bogota, the Paramus police had learned that Eng might have weapons in his home. He also had stated in court that if the police came to his house, there would be “two dead Paramus cops,” Brock said.

The suspect was released on $65,000 bail, despite the threats to his now ex-wife, the threat about police, and the weapons cache he had. I'd say that was far too low considering his history, but police should be commended for carrying out the arrest without a loss of life and averting a potential massacre close to home.

Trenton's Mayor Under FBI Investigation

Yesterday, reports indicated that the FBI searched the home of Trenton Mayor Tony Mack and two other locations.

Mack has denied any wrongdoing and no once has been charged in the expanding federal probe.

“We have not violated the public trust in any way, nor have I violated any of my public duties, and I have no further comment on this matter,” Mack said in a brief statement, before decline to answer questions to a group of reporters
As the search at City Hall entered its second hour, Trenton Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson said she was surprised to find the federal agents there this morning.

"I'm just here to make sure our clerk's office and council business is moving forward as best we can," Caldwell-Wilson said. "I was pretty shocked when I heard this morning. And I'm not going to interfere with the investigation. I'm going to let them move on."

Mack’s administration has been plagued with accusations of cronyism and corruption since he took office in July 2010. He has cycled through business administrators and police directors and seen appointees step down when they were charged with crimes, or when their criminal histories or personal financial troubles came to light.

City Councilman George Muschal, a frequent critic of Mack's management of the city, said he was not surprised when he received a text message notifying him that the FBI was raiding City Hall this morning. He only asked one question:

“What took them so long to get there?” Muschal said when reached by phone this afternoon. "There is full blown corruption in the city of Trenton. We have to go to a rock bottom low before we can rebuild. This might be a rock bottom low.”

Among those prosecuted have been Mack’s half-brother, a city water utility employee, as well as a former business administrator and a former chief of staff. A number of employees have sued the administration, including a former recreation employee who alleged that a close Mack associate, acting public works director Harold Hall, acted to bypass public bidding requirements and hired unqualified friends and relatives.

The other two homes belong to Mack's brother Raphael.

Today, the FBI initiated searches of the Mayor's offices at City Hall.

Mack has been under suspicion of engaging in nepotism and reckless spending, but this appears to be something much more serious. Corruption is a huge problem in the state, and it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Mack has engaged in all manner of shoddy practices while in office.

Mack had faced a recall election last year, but survived the recall when it failed to garner sufficient support. That's despite going through eight business administrators, four police directors, many other key employees while the city's finances and fortunes wane. Critics have repeatedly noted that Mack fired the competent and hired the incompetent, replaced the honest with the dishonest. That's why the calls of nepotism and corruption are so strong.

We had to play name that party since the news reports didn't indicate as much, but he's a Democrat.

FBI Sting Leads To Arrest of Attempted Suicide Bomber In DC

The FBI had been carrying out a sting operation to ferret out Islamic extremists and it appears that their efforts have paid off. They arrested a suspect today, who was believed to be from Morocco in his late 20s or early 30s, when he received what he thought was a vest containing explosives so as to attack the US Capitol:

An FBI official says the man had expressed a desire to carry out a terrorist attack. By the end, he was willing to carry out a suicide mission, which makes this case different from most sting operations. His apparent target was to be the U.S. Capitol visitors' center. "He wanted to set off the explosives where people would be around," one official says.

Agents are conducting searches in Alexandria, Virginia, where the man had been living. They have not yet released the man's name while they do further investigating, but they say at this point they believe he was acting alone. And while they doubt he would have been capable of pulling this off by himself, that is always the unknown factor in a sting of this kind.

Law enforcement had been carrying out the sting operation for some time, and gave the suspect a fake bomb vest today.

“This arrest was the culmination of a lengthy and extensive operation during which the individual was closely and carefully monitored,” spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider said in a statement. “The U.S. Capitol Police was intimately involved in the investigation for the duration of the operation. At no time was the public or Congressional community in any danger.”

The Capitol police didn’t disclose any details but Fox News and NBC reported that the man was carrying a vest containing what he believed were explosives but were actually inert. He was arrested in the sting operation after leaving a mosque where he was praying before heading to the Capitol, Fox said.

NBC said that man was in his early 30s and had been under observation for months.

Expect the usual claims that the suspect was entrapped by law enforcement and that but for the law enforcement informant claims that they could provide explosives and/or know-how the suspect would not have carried out any terror attack and that it would have stopped at the mere plotting stage.

Those kinds of claims are unsuccessful at trial and the suspects are usually found guilty of crimes flowing from attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction (explosives) to conspiracy. The suspect is someone who had no problem donning what he thought was a suicide bomb vest in order to murder civilians. He thought he was dealing with like-minded individuals who wanted to kill Americans for who they were and what they represented. He wanted to engage in acts of terrorism.

It is those acts for which he will be charged and the entrapment defenses will fail.

Corzine Resigns From MF Global As Investigations Continue

Things are not looking good for former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. First, his new company MF Global imploded after Corzine pushed the company to take risky bets on sovereign debt in Europe and failed to have sufficient collateral to back those bets.

Then, the company failed to provide proper protections for client accounts - commingling funds of clients with company money that is a huge red flag. That only came to light after suitors for the company started poring through the books and saw serious discrepancies. Those discrepancies total more than $630 million that cannot be accounted for.

The potential buyers fled, MF Global declared bankruptcy, and the regulators and investigators are now picking over the ruins.

And what of Jon Corzine? Not only has he resigned as head of MF Global, he's now hired a criminal attorney, which is natural because he's likely going to be facing charges relating to the commingling of funds, leading everyone astray with his reassurances at a time when he knew, or had reason to know, that his company was crumbling all around him.

We're supposed to be grateful that Corzine didn't seek his massive severance package, which totals more than $12 million? Sorry, but he's bankrupted the company; there's no money to collect.

Mr. Corzine resigned from MF Global on Friday morning and will not seek $12 million severance payments.

Federal authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission, are investigating the $630 million in missing customer money at MF Global.

Mr. Levander could not be reached as he is out of the country, according to his assistant. He did not return an e-mail seeking comment. Daniel O’Donnell, the chief executive of Mr. Levander’s law firm, Dechert, declined to comment.

In Mr. Levander, the chairman of Dechert, Mr. Corzine has retained a New York lawyer who is no stranger to defending prominent Wall Street executives. He represented John Thain, the former chief executive at Merrill Lynch, in a government inquiry related his role in Merrill’s sale to Bank of America. Ezra Merkin, a hedge fund manager who invested with Bernard L. Madoff, hired Mr. Levander to defend him against a New York attorney general’s lawsuit connected to the Madoff case.

“Andy is not just smart but has a deep understanding of the investigative process,” said Steven M. Cohen, a defense lawyer at Zuckerman Spaeder in New York and the former top aide to Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. “He understands how cases are built and therefore how they are defended.”

Other recent high-profile assignments for the bow-tie clad Mr. Levander include his representation of the outside directors of Lehman Brothers and Monster.com, a jobs Web site, in a government investigation relating to the backdating of employee stock options. In 2004, he obtained an acquittal for Michael Rigas, a former Adelphia Communications executive, in a criminal trial. A jury convicted Mr. Rigas’s father and brother in the same case.

Like much of New York’s white-collar defense bar, Mr. Levander is a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan. A graduate of Tufts University and Columbia Law School, Mr. Levander clerked for Judge Wilfred Feinberg on the Federal Appeals Court in Manhattan. He joined Dechert in 2005 after it acquired Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman, a small New York firm where he had worked.

Corzine also hired another firm to represent him in bankruptcy proceedings and shareholder suits that are already being lodged against the firm and him personally.

This will not end well for Corzine.

UPDATE:
Is there a conflict of interests between the regulators and investigations into Corzine's actions. The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is Gary Gensler. The two have crossed paths numerous times and raises questions as to whether Gensler can do his job to suss out all that went wrong with MF Global and hold Corzine accountable:

Gensler was a partner with Goldman Sachs, rising to rank of co-head of finance before leaving the firm in 1997 for a role in the U.S. Treasury department. At the time, Corzine, a 24-year veteran of the firm, served as its CEO.

The two men met up again on Capitol Hill, when Corzine, then the junior senator from New Jersey, in 2002 helped co-author the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposed massive new regulations in response to accounting scandals that caused Enron, Tyco and WorldCom to implode. Gensler was a senior advisor to Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, for whom the act was partially named.

This week’s turn of events–MF Global’s meltdown and subsequent findings by its regulators that the firm allegedly violated requirements on customer segregated funds–promises to reunite the two men once again, though on opposite sides of the table. A CFTC spokesman did not return a message immediately seeking comment on Corzine and Gensler’s connection and whether it represents a potential conflict.

I don't think this will affect the investigations, since Gensler could recuse himself while others around him in the CFTC can do their jobs.

UPDATE:
Wouldn't you know it that Corzine lobbied to get regulators to reduce their restrictions on the very kinds of transactions that undid MF Global.

As a former United States senator and a former governor of New Jersey, as well as the leader of Goldman Sachs in the 1990s, Mr. Corzine carried significant weight in the worlds of Washington and Wall Street. While other financial firms employed teams of lobbyists to fight the new regulation, MF Global’s chief executive in meetings over the last year personally pressed regulators to halt their plans.

The agency proposing the rule, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, relented. Wall Street, which has been working to curb many financial regulations, won another battle.

Yet with MF Global in bankruptcy and regulators scrambling to find $630 million in missing customer funds, Mr. Corzine’s effort may come back to haunt him.

The proposed rule would have restricted a complicated transaction that allowed MF Global in essence to borrow money from its own customers. Brokerage firms are allowed to use customers’ money to earn interest, not unlike banks, but this rule would have outlawed using customer funds for a loan to the firm itself.

Four Arrested In Georgia Terror Plot Using Ricin and An Update On The Hutaree Militia Case

Four men from Georgia were under arrest after allegedly being involved in a plot to attack government officials using ricin and other weapons.

The men, all aged 65 and over, were recorded telling an F.B.I. informant that they wanted to kill federal judges, Internal Revenue Service employees and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to court documents.

“There is no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly, highly illegal: murder,” one of those charged, Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga., was recorded telling the informant.

“When it comes time to saving the Constitution, that means some people have got to die,” he said.

Another of the men, Samuel J. Crump, 68, of Toccoa, Ga., is accused of saying he wanted to make 10 pounds of ricin and disperse it in Atlanta and other cities, as well as loosing it from a car traveling on Interstate highways. Ricin, made from the castor bean, is a potent toxin, though it is not generally believed to be effective for killing large numbers of people.

The others arrested were Dan Roberts, 67, and Ray H. Adams, 65, both of Toccoa, the Justice Department said.

Ricin is a bioweapon and has no known cure. If you are afflicted with ricin poisoning, you will die. That's just one of the weapons that these four men sought to use.

They have ties to the militia movement in Georgia and one of the men had worked at the CDC. These weren't men engaging in idle talk. They wanted to take action against the government, including assassination:

Thomas was described in affidavits as a leading speaker at the meetings. He discussed having a “bucket list” of government officials, business leaders and members of the media who needed to be “taken out” to “make the country right again,” the affidavit said.

Thomas also said he was a military veteran who had been to war and had taken a life, and said he could do it again, the affidavit said.

“There’s no way for us, as militiamen, to save this country, to save Georgia, without doing something that’s highly illegal: murder,” Thomas said during a meeting in March, according to the affidavit. "... When it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die."

Adams formerly worked at the USDA for the Agricultural Research Service as a lab technician, the U.S. Department of Agriculture verified to the FBI. Adams is accused of trying to help Crump obtain ricin for use as a weapon, authorities said. According to the affidavit, Crump once worked for the Centers for Disease Control for a contractor doing maintenance work for the CDC. Roberts is retired from the signage industry, family members said Tuesday.

FBI documents reveal the men held a series of meetings beginning in March and as recently as last week in which they discussed their plans.

One of the arrested men has ties to an extremist group called the North Georgia Area Command. The Georgia plotters apparently got the idea for the attacks from an online novel written by an extremist.

Meanwhile, there's a guilty plea being entered by one of the Hutaree militia members. The Hutaree, a militia group in Michigan, was arrested by law enforcement and charged with plotting to overthrow the government. While the defendants claim that they were engaging in tough talk - protected by the 1st Amendment, prosecutors note that they were heavily armed and had taken steps in furtherance of the talk. Another one of the defendants has been declared incompetent to stand trial.

Kudos to law enforcement for thwarting this planned attack, which had the potential to be a mass casualty attack of significant proportions.

Developing: FBI, DEA Thwart Plot By Iran To Assassinate Saudi Envoy; Attack Embassies On US Soil

This is a developing story. CNN is reporting that according to US officials, the FBI and DEA have disrupted a plot by elements of the Iranian government to kill a Saudi envoy to U.S. on American soil.

This would necessarily complicate relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but I have to question the kind of motivations that Iran would try such an attack, let alone an attack of that kind on US soil. It would be the kind of action that would push the US to take a stronger stance against Iran, including still stronger sanctions and other actions.

MSNBC has more, including that the plot included attacks on Saudi and Israeli embassies in the US.

The criminal complaint, unsealed in federal court in New York City, identified the two alleged plotters as Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri.

Holder said Arbabsiar, who was arrested on Sept. 29 in New York, was working for the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard.

Shakuri, who is based in Iran, remains at large, Holder said.

Both are originally from Iran and Arbabsiar is a naturalized U.S. citizen, the complaint said.

Saudi Arabia's ambassador is Adel Al-Jubeir, who has served in that post since 2007.

The indictment is the result of a sting operation conducted by the FBI, sources tell NBC News.

The case started when one of the suspects, who lived in Texas, made contact with an undercover DEA informant and asked for assistance from the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico to assassinate the ambassador, the sources said.

ABC News reported that Arbabsiar was the one who made contact. A source said he reportedly claimed he was being "directed by high-ranking members of the Iranian government," including a cousin who was "a member of the Iranian army but did not wear a uniform."

Arbabsiar allegedly wired $50,000 to the informant as a down payment on a $1.5 million assassination fee.

UPDATE:
A copy of the Justice Department amended complaint can be found here. They are charged with the following:

conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives); and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism transcending national boundaries. Arbabsiar is further charged with an additional count of foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

Naser Abdo Defiant in Court Even As He Allegedly Admits To Plotting Terror Attacks

Private Naser Jason Abdo has allegedly admitted to Army investigators that he was planning on carrying out a terror attack against Fort Hood personnel who frequent a restaurant near the base.



Abdo apparently bought an army uniform with Fort Hood patches, but the key to thwarting the plot was a suspicious gun shop employee who noticed that Abdo was asking about the use of smokeless powder even as he was intending on buying several canisters.

In his first court appearance since his arrest, Abdo was defiant.

Federal prosecutors charged 21-year-old Pfc. Naser Abdo (AB'-doh) with possessing an illegal firearm during his court hearing on Friday.

As Abdo left the courtroom, he yelled "Nidal Hasan Fort Hood 2009." Hasan is charged with killing 13 people in the worst mass shooting ever on a U.S. military installation.

Abdo was arrested on Wednesday. Authorities say weapons and bomb-making materials were stashed in a motel room where Abdo was staying near the main gate of Fort Hood.

Other reports indicate that he shouted more than Nidal Hasan's name; they indicate that he shouted the name of a girl, Abeer Quassim al Janvi, a 12-year-old girl that was raped in Iraq in 2006 by soldiers in the 101 Airborne Division from Fort Campbell.

Then he yelled, "Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood 2009."

So, he's justifying his plot to murder soldiers, their families, and other civilians based on a 2006 case in Iraq and somehow Nidal Hasan's attack that killed 12 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Lovely.

The affidavit notes that at the time of his arrest, he had the following:

had two clocks, two spools of auto wire, Winchester .40 caliber ammunition, a Springfield .40 caliber handgun and printed article entitled "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom."

Abdo, agents said, also had a handwritten list in a composition notebook of the following items: "red black green wire, 9v bat, Christmas lights, pressure cooker, power drill, 160 gunpowder, gorilla tape, epoxy glue, one small box of shotgun shells, a cardboard box, gloves and honeycomb linses [sic] for Bino's."

During an interview with the FBI, the affidavit said, Abdo "admitted that he planned to assemble two bombs in the hotel room using gun powder and shrapnel packed into pressure cookers to detonate inside an unspecified restaurant frequented by soldiers from Fort Hood.

How Abdo goes from being a claimed conscientious objector who sought to be separated from the Army to being a terrorist is going to get quite a bit a scrutiny. The Army apparently rejected his conscientious objector status but was going to grant him separation from the Army on that basis but the action was put on hold once the child porn charges came to light.

His next court appearance is August 4 at the federal courthouse in Waco.

Meanwhile, Abdo's background is going to scour his background and every aspect of his life, including who he contacted, whether he had help, and other details that may be relevant:


UPDATE:
To provide some context to comments above, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi Iraq 2006 refers to the case where US soldiers were accused of raping and murdering a 14 year-old girl, and the murder of her parents and sister. Two soldiers were convicted of murder and 3 others entered guilty pleas. The soldiers were from Fort Campbell (Abdo's former base when he went AWOL).

FBI Opens Investigation Into News Corp. At Behest of Bipartisan Political Pressure

The noose is tightening around News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has penned a letter to the FBI demanding that it open an investigation into whether any of News Corporation's affiliates engaged in wrongdoing, including wiretapping or hacking into voice mail accounts of victims of the 9/11 attacks.

The inquiry was prompted in part by a letter from Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, to Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, in which he asked that the bureau immediately open an investigation of News Corporation, citing media reports that journalists working for its subsidiary, The News of the World, tried to obtain the phone records of 9/11 victims through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping, the people said.

The decision to open a case in New York stemmed from the mushrooming hacking scandal that has wracked Britain for days, ever since The News of the World admitted that it had illegally intercepted the voice mail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered in 2002. It also follows a decision by the News Corporation chairman, Rupert Murdoch, to withdraw from the biggest media takeover bid in British history.

The investigation was expected to be handled jointly by two F.B.I. squads in the bureau’s New York office, one that investigates cybercrimes and another that focuses on public corruption and white collar crimes, one of the people said. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

That follows similar calls from Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) among others.

The British Daily Mail had alleged that the News of the World attempted to access the voice mails of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks or other Americans but thus far the Guardian has been unable to verify that report. With the FBI entering into the fray, this matter is going to come to a head.

If the FBI finds that one of News Corporation's outfits engaged in this kind of action, the gig will be up for the company and puts everyone associated with those media outlets in jeopardy - particularly editors and reporters who used that information or knew or had reason to know how such information was obtained, or condoned those kinds of activities.

Investigators Looking For Who Planted Pipe Bomb at Colorado Mall

Investigators are searching for whoever planted a pipe bomb among propane gas tanks at the Southwest Plaza Mall in Littleton, Colorado shopping mall on the 12th anniversary of the Columbine massacre.



The bomb and propane tanks were discovered after the fire department responded to a small fire at the mall. The bomb squad was called to defuse the bomb. The FBI has identified a person of interest, based on surveillance video:

The FBI has released these surveillance pictures of the man they are looking for. The subject is describe as a white male, with graying hair, a silver mustache, wearing a dark colored cap with a light colored logo on the front, gray and white horizontally striped shirt, dark jacket with silver buttons, blue jeans, and dark colored shoes.

Anyone with information about this man is asked to call Jefferson County Sheriff's Office tipline at (303) 271-5615.

Members of the Jefferson County Bomb Squad found two propane tanks and a pipe bomb inside the mall after a fire broke out near the food court. The mall is expected to remain closed until Thursday.

The fire started at about 11:50 a.m. Wednesday. By 11:59 firefighters had extinguished the fire. Firefighters found a suspicious device at the origin of the fire, including two propane tanks and what was later revealed to be a pipe bomb.

Search Resumes In Hunt For LI Serial Killers Victims

Investigators have resumed their search for remains of victims of serial killers on Long Island near Jones Beach.

Authorities said identifying the human remains already recovered is crucial to this case.

"We're waiting for the forensic analysis of the remains that have been recently found in Suffolk County as well as those found in Nassau County. When we get those answers, as soon as we possibly can, we will make that information available," Dominick Varrone, Suffolk Police Chief of Detectives, said.

Eight sets of human remains have been discovered in Suffolk County. Bones and a skull were recovered in two separate locations, several miles down the road in Nassau County this week.

Only four of those bodies have been identified. All were women who vanished between July 2007 and September of last year.

There's still no trace of Shannan Gilbert, whose disappearance last year prompted the search that uncovered the bodies.

If there are others, investigators are hoping that a series of over-flights with a high-tech FBI imaging device will find them.

"These flyovers maybe able to identify skeletal remains that we have not located," Varrone said.

Varrone said the flyover is expected to happen on Monday.

The search was put on hold yesterday as bad weather, including thunderstorms and torrential rains, pummeled the region and technical difficulties kept the FBI helicopter grounded. The FAA has issued a no-fly zone in the vicinity of Jones Beach so as to give the FBI helicopter unfettered access to the region.

Serial Killers Running Amok in New York and New Jersey

Investigators no longer believe that the same killer is involved in the murder of four women outside Atlantic City and the murders on Long Island near Jones Beach.

"There is no connection between the Atlantic City case and the Suffolk County case," Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said, citing recent investigative findings.

Suffolk investigators began looking closely at the unsolved Atlantic City murders after the remains of four craigslist call girls were found on a remote coastal island in December. The four victims in Atlantic City were all female prostitutes. And they were found dead in November 2006 in a ditch behind a motel on the Black Horse Pike highway.

All were barefoot, their bodies arranged facedown in a line with their heads pointing toward Atlantic City. The four slain hookers found near Gilgo Beach on Long Island were wrapped in burlap sacks and dumped amid brush-covered dunes. Dormer said the different methods used to dispose of the bodies is not the only factor that sets the cases apart.

"There were other items connected to the two cases that indicate that it may not be the same person," Dormer said, without elaborating.

The FBI will lead an aerial search of the island dumping ground, where the bodies of five - and possibly six - additional victims have been found in the past two weeks.

That indicates that we're talking about two separate serial killers, but in reality, the recovery of 9 or 10 sets of remains in Long Island suggests that we've got at least two, if not more killers involved in dumping their victims along a stretch of highway near Jones Beach.

Due to the age of some of the remains, speculation is that at least some of the older remains may be the victims of serial killer Joel Rifkin, but that will take further forensic investigation and the remains are being reviewed and studied by the New York City Medical Examiners and forensic scientists.



The FBI will be assisting local law enforcement in their search, and are using specialized aircraft to identify areas for additional ground searches in the thick scrub brush along Ocean Parkway and the nearby beaches.

Suffolk County Police Chief Richard Dormer suggested that there are at least two suspects in the serial killings of four Craigslist call girls found in December near Oak and Gilgo beaches.

Police divers are also combing the waters of the bay near where the other remains were recovered.

As I had surmised yesterday, it would appear that investigators are looking at multiple serial killers dumping bodies in the area. Due to the evidence gathered thus far, investigators now think that there are at least three serial killers victims recovered thus far, including those that may be the work of Rifkin - and that doesn't count the serial killer who struck outside Atlantic City.

Arrest Made in Martin Luther King Day Bomb Incident In Spokane

A suspect has been arrested in the foiled bombing of a MLK Jr. parade in Spokane Washington. FBI and law enforcement were converging on a home near Spokane.

The bomb had a remote detonator and the ability to cause mass casualties, according to officials.

The bomb was defused without incident but unnerved residents of Spokane, especially those who took part in a parade whose theme was steeped in peace and nonviolence.

The attempt raised the possibility of a racial motive in a region that has been home to the white supremacist group Aryan Nations.

In addition to the bomb, the backpack contained two T-shirts that authorities analyzed for clues.

Officials praised as heroes the three city workers who spotted the backpack about an hour before the parade was to start on Jan. 17. They looked inside, saw wires and immediately alerted law enforcement.

The bomb was carefully placed on a metal bench with a brick wall behind that would have directed shrapnel toward Main Street, where marchers were expected to pass, investigators said.

Kudos go not only to investigators who broke the case, but the alert individuals who found the backpack and informed law enforcement in time to defuse the bomb before it could detonate to deadly effect.

UPDATE:
KHQ6, which made the initial reports, indicates that at least one person was arrested in connection with the case.

Viewers in Stevens County told KHQ at least nine FBI vehicles sped towards a house near Highway 395 south of Colville. At least two counter-assault vehicles were also at the house, according to the viewer.

City workers found a suspicious backpack along a parade route on Martin Luther King day where thousands of people were scheduled to march.

Additional photos of the device are also at the KHQ6 site.

UPDATE:
Perhaps not surprising, the Seattle Times is reporting that the person arrested has connections to a white supremacist group. White supremacists were considered likely suspects given the target and proximity to the haunts of many white supremacist and hate groups in Washington and nearby Idaho.

UPDATE:
We have a name:

A magistrate clerk at the U.S. District Court in Spokane tells The Associated Press that Kevin William Harpham, who was arrested Wednesday, is scheduled to make an initial appearance Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time.

He's 36 years old. He's being charged with one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of knowingly possessing an improvised explosive device.

UPDATE:
The SPLC has more on Harpham's background (HT: Stanley Sea at LGF), which includes membership in the neo-Nazi National Alliance in late 2004. It isn't known whether he continued to be a member or joined with any other hate groups since then.

UPDATE:
More details about the takedown:

Records indicate Harpham is a registered voter, which suggests he has no prior felony convictions, and could explain why it took so long for a suspect to be identified.

Agents are in rural Stevens County searching Harpham’s home near Addy, which is south of Colville. Witnesses reported hearing a loud explosion that agents used to breach the front door.

Kevin Coy, who lives near the house being searched, said law enforcement took one of his neighbors into custody this morning as he drove across a bridge over the Colville River. In an interview with KHQ News, Coy described the suspect’s house as a trailer, and said there were lots of dogs around. He also said a blue four-door Honda was put on a trailer and removed by the federal agents.

Previously, federal officials had called the bomb a thwarted attempt at domestic terrorism and said the investigation would likely turn on forensic testing of the bomb, which had been sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation lab in Quantico, Va.

Guilty Pleas From Two NJ Men Accused of Planning To Join Jihad Overseas

Two New Jersey men have entered guilty pleas to charges that they were planning on joining al-Shabab, an al Qaeda affiliated group.

Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte entered into a packaged plea deal Thursday in a Newark federal courtroom.

They admitted to conspiring to kill, maim and kidnap persons outside the United States by joining al-Shabab, a designated terrorist organization.

The two were arrested in June at New York's Kennedy Airport.

Alessa's family had refused to acknowledge that their son was attempting to carry out jihad and instead blamed the FBI for entrapping their son. They knew their son was troubled, had violent tendencies, and actually made violent threats against fellow students at various schools in Northern New Jersey.

Clearly, their defense attorneys thought the better of taking this case to trial and instead entered a plea deal that would likely result in sentencing recommendations of 10-15 years since both men were charged with one count of conspiracy to kill, maim and murder persons outside of the United States that carry a life sentence.

FBI Investigating Bomb Left At MLK Jr. Parade In Spokane, WA

The FBI is investigating a bomb that, had it detonated, would have caused a mass casualty incident with significant loss of life in Spokane, Washington. It was discovered on Monday along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr parade minutes before the parade was to pass the area. The parade was rerouted away from the device as the bomb squad deactivated the device (blew it up preemptively).

The device inside "clearly would have had the potential to inflict multiple casualties, injury and death, to humans," Harrill said in an interview Tuesday. He declined to describe the device.

The FBI said the backpack also contained two T-shirts — one from the 2010 Stevens County Relay for Life, an American Cancer Society fundraiser, and the other reading, "Treasure Island Spring 2009."

About 1,500 people marched along the new route without incident while the Spokane Explosives Disposal Unit neutralized the device.

No one has claimed responsibility or offered a motive, Harrill said. But he called the connection with the King Day march "inescapable."

The FBI certainly isn't ignoring the target.

The head of the FBI office in the region, Frank Harrill, said the bomb was potentially deadly, and called the incident an act of domestic terrorism that was meant to advance a political or social agenda.Harrill said agents have not yet determined a motive, but recognize that it could be linked to the federal holiday honoring King, an African-American who was assassinated in 1968.

Spokane is a hotbed of racist activities, and it is in close proximity to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which is home to several white supremacist groups.

Is a Serial Killer On Loose on Long Island?

The discovery of four bodies alongside a road near Jones Beach on Long Island has raised the specter of a serial killer. The remains of the four bodies, each in various states of decomposition, have been tentatively identified as all women, and investigators from the Suffolk County police department are working with the FBI to ascertain the identities of those bodies.

This discovery recalls a similar discovery of four bodies near Atlantic City under similar circumstances. If the two incidents are connected, we're talking about a methodical serial killer who targets prostitutes. Investigators are trying to connect the two cases by examining Craigslist as the link.

Detectives are looking into the Craigslist angle of the women who were murdered in New York. If that information can be tied to gambling records, including comps and casino credit, they may be able to establish the critical link to bringing the killer to justice, accordint to officials.

After the murders in Atlantic City, detectives scoured hotel records for the names of any known offenders in the area. The prostitutes on Pacific Avenue met with detectives and offered information about strange clients they encountered.

Hundreds of leads were investigated and followed up on by the Atlantic County Task Force that was formed to investigate the murders. The unit is still working and waiting for more information from Long Island detectives.

In Atlantic City the bodies were found relatively soon, approximately one month after the murders. This allowed for fast identification of the victims. The police immediately reached out to witnesses in the community for additional information. There are no such witness groups in the Long Island case.

The bodies found on Long Island laid out in the elements for so long that only skeletal remains were left of three women. Two of the bodies in New York were stuffed into burlap bags keeping critical evidence with the bodies.

Prostitutes who advertise on Craigslist are more isolated from each other. They often work alone unlike the street walkers in Atlantic City who all seem to know each other and exchange information about their clients. However, prostitutes who use Craigslist to advertise their services leave an electronic history of their records. This may be the leverage detectives need to catch the killer.

Investigators are looking for hallmarks of the killer (the signature) by which the killer identifies the victims as his. The investigators are busy trying to figure out the identities of those victims:

Dental remains might uncover fillings or a false front tooth, which could help identify the victim, Mr. Van Zandt said. Investigators can tell if a skull has been crushed by a rock or if throat bones show signs of being crushed. All of that can be matched against existing missing-persons records — there are some 875,000 people reported missing in the United States each year — and run through a federal database, he said.

Already, two cases of missing women are being studied in connection with the Long Island case. One is the disappearance in May of Shannan Gilbert, 24, a prostitute from Jersey City. She was last seen not far from where the remains were found.

The other involves Megan Waterman, 22, of Scarborough, Me., who was last seen on June 6 leaving a hotel in Hauppauge, N.Y., several miles northeast of where the bodies were found, after she had been coaxed into doing escorting, with meetings arranged on Craigslist, said Cynthia Caron, who runs a nonprofit group that helps families of missing people.

Investigators have removed the SUV from a home where Gilbert was last seen.



Some of the more notorious New York area serial killers are known to target prostitutes, including Joel Rifkin, who may have killed as many as 17 drug-addicted prostitutes before being captured and thrown in prison on a life sentence, and Arthur Shawcross, whose parole on an earlier manslaughter case enabled him to resume a murderous spree across upstate New York.

Details Emerge In New Jersey Terror Arrests

Carlos Almonte and Mohamed Alessa are each facing one terror-related count: one count of conspiracy to kill, maim and murder persons outside of the United States. The charges carry a life sentence if convicted.

The duo had been under surveillance since authorities were tipped off in 2006. Both men were put on the no-fly list but were allowed to purchase tickets to Egypt and to make their way through security at JFK so as to not arouse suspicion (and to permit formative acts in furtherance of their conspiracy).

Both Alessa and Almonte were on federal no-fly lists. Buying airline tickets, therefore, would have triggered red flags that could have blown the investigation. So authorities lifted the restriction, allowing them to book reservations on their separate flights, and making them think everything was a go for their trips. Then Saturday night, they cleared security, checked their bags and walked separately down jet ways as authorities waited to pounce.

Unlike many other terror-related suspects whose families rally around the suspect, the father of one of the accused NJ jihadis isn't supporting his son.

The father of one of the two accused Jersey jihadists says he is so disgusted with his son that he didn't attend his court appearance Monday.

I'm not supporting anybody that does something wrong," Pedro Almonte said of his 24-year-old son, Carlos, in an interview with the Daily News.

The Dominican immigrant from Elmwood Park, N.J., said he doesn't know what to make of Carlos, who converted to militant Islam and changed his name to Omar after high school when he fell in with Mohamed Alessa, 20.

"I don't want to talk to anybody - even him," the father said.

Almonte and Alessa were charged in federal court in Newark, and Almonte smirked his way through his appearance. He had apparently resisted arrest at JFK airport, and sported a couple of bruises. Both men were wearing "pseudo-soldier outfits of cargo pants and military-style khaki shirts with shoulder tabs." (their lawyers let them do that? that's just bad visuals if you're representing these two in court).

Both men are also linked with Anwar al-Awlaki, and both men downloaded Awlaki's jihadi sermons.
The duo prepared for jihad and the trip to Somalia.

“They only fear you when you have a gun and when you — when you start killing them, and when you — when you take their head, and you go like this, and you behead it on camera.” He added: “We’ll start doing killing here, if I can’t do it over there.” Mr. Alessa used the Arabic words for gun and killing, according to the complaint. The next day, said the complaint, he told the officer: “I leave this time, God willing, I never come back. I’ll never see this crap hole. Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come back here and do something here. Ah, I love that.”

Both men will be held without bail.

Suspect Held In Times Square Bombing Case

A man was arrested at JFK Airport as he was trying to board a flight to Dubai in connection to the failed bombing in Times Square.

A Pakistan-born U.S. citizen accused of driving a bomb-laden SUV into Times Square and parking it on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters was to appear in court Tuesday to face charges that he tried to set off a massive fireball and kill Americans, federal authorities said.

The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, was taken into custody late Monday by FBI agents and New York Police Department detectives at Kennedy Airport while trying to board a flight to Dubai, according to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials. He was identified by customs agents and stopped before boarding, Holder said early Tuesday in Washington.

Shahzad is a naturalized U.S. citizen and had recently returned from a five-month trip to Pakistan, where he had a wife, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into the failed car bombing.

The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan was handling the case and said Shahzad would appear in court Tuesday, but the charges were not made public. FBI agents searched the home at a known address for Shahzad in Bridgeport, Conn., early Tuesday, said agent Kimberly Mertz, who wouldn't answer questions about the search.

Authorities removed filled plastic bags from the house overnight in a mixed-race, working-class neighborhood of multi-family homes in Connecticut's largest city. A bomb squad came and went without entering as local police and FBI agents gathered in the cordoned-off street.

It was the use of a disposable cellphone that led the FBI to the suspect. Shahzad will be in federal court today to face charges and it was believed that he had bought the Nissan Pathfinder about three weeks ago for cash via Craigslist.



The person seen in a video taken from the Junior's Restaurant on Shubert Alley doesn't appear to be involved in the bombing.

Shahzad was actually on board the plane and readying for departure when it was called back to the gate and Shahzad was taken into custody, but not before all the passengers and baggage were rescreened.

UPDATE:
Three other people were detained from that flight, and it appears that investigators are looking at the possibility that Shahzad trained at a Pakistani terror camp.

UPDATE:
Experts believe that Shahzad didn't have sophisticated weapons training, but that the crude weapon he fashioned had the potential to cause mass casualties. Shahzad also claims to have acted alone.

UPDATE:
US Attorney General Eric Holder has been holding a presser at which time he said that Shahzad admits to his role in the car bomb attempt. At least two other people have been arrested in Pakistan if reports out of Pakistan are to be believed:

Mr. Shahzad, 30, a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan, told the authorities that he had acted alone, but hours after he was arrested, security officials in Karachi, Pakistan, said they arrested a Pakistani man who had spent time with Mr. Shahzad during a recent visit there.

Investigators said they arrested the man, Muhammad Rehan, in a mosque in the North Nazimabad area just after morning prayers. The mosque is known for its links with the militant group Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Investigators said Mr. Rehan told them that he had rented a pickup truck and driven with Mr. Shahzad to the northwestern city of Peshawar, where they stayed from July 7 to July 22, 2009. The account could not be independently verified.

Pakistani television reported that as many as eight people had been arrested there on Tuesday, but those reports could not be immediately confirmed.

Moreover, there's no way to know whether those arrests are connected with the Times Square plot. Curiously, Jaish-e-Muhammad is more well known for its terrorism in connection with the disputed territories Jammu and Kashmir along the Line of Control with India than terrorism relating to the US.

UPDATE:
Shahzad wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He wasn't exactly a Rhodes Scholar. He also didn't do a good job of hiding his identity and allowed investigators to trace back the bomb to him in any number of ways:

How did investigators zero-in on Shahzad? Officials said they found a bevy of evidence by examining that same SUV. NYPD officials say the VIN – or vehicle identification number – was scratched off the dashboard, but was also stamped on the engine block.

Agents tracked down the SUV's most recent registered owner, a 19-year-old Bridgeport, Conn. woman. She told them Shahzad responded to her online Craigslist ad for the SUV and that he bought it on April 24th for $1,300 cash and paid for it in $100 bills.

His arrest was actually part of a law enforcement operation to not only nab Shahzad, but any potential accomplices here in the US:

Emirates Airlines flight 202 out of John F. Kennedy International Airport, which was bound for Dubai, rolled back from the gate at around 11:45 on Monday night. Shahzad was presumably all buckled in, ready to leave the country and ultimately return to his native Pakistan.

CBS 2 has learned that investigators were already onto Shahzad and laid low, hoping he would make contact with an accomplice. Airport authorities had already instructed the pilots that they were not to take off.

UPDATE:
There has been some dispute over exactly where Shahzad was taken into custody and whether he actually made it on the plane.

According to the latest reports, he was allowed to board and be seated aboard the Emirates Air Flt 202 before law enforcement noticed that he was on the no-fly list and should not be allowed to fly:

As federal agents closed in, Faisal Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped. By the time Customs and Border Protection officials spotted Shahzad's name on the passenger list and recognized him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.

But it didn't. At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner's door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.

After authorities pulled Shahzad off the plane, he admitted he was behind the crude Times Square car bomb, officials said. He also claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan's lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents. That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.

Shahzad, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, was charged Tuesday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Saturday evening's failed Times Square bombing. According to a federal complaint, he confessed to buying an SUV, rigging it with a homemade bomb and driving it into the busy area where he tried to detonate it.

The Obama administration played down the fact that Shahzad, a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, had made it aboard the plane. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wouldn't talk about it, other than to say Customs officials prevented the plane from taking off. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the security system has fallback procedures in place for times like this, and they worked.

The plane wasn't going to take off, but it is disconcerting that he managed to get on the plane at all.