A paralegal with the New York City District Attorney's Office was arrested for trying to build explosives to blow up an immigrant shelter across the street from her apartment, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.
Police said Derek Kleber, 27, who worked as a trial preparation assistant in the Queens District Attorney's Office, complained about a party at Camway Lodge, a small hostel used by the city of Elmhurst to temporarily hold immigrants. It is said that he was recruiting. Arrived from the Mexican border in the southern part of the United States.
“I know I shouldn't do this, but it's for Queens County,” he said, according to court filings.
“This is war. I wish we had something big enough to blow them into Venezuela.”
Kleber confided to an anonymous acquaintance that he intended to purchase fireworks and combine their contents with nails, gasoline, and other materials to create a rudimentary explosive.
“I'm not trying to kill, I'm trying to hurt,” he said.
“We need to teach them a lesson.”
Kleber claimed he was testing versions of homemade explosives and considering using drones to drop multiple bombs on unsuspecting residents inside shelters.
Police said Kleber's fiancée consented to a search of the apartment earlier this week and found BB guns in the children's room and various fireworks in the large bedroom closet.
A subsequent search also uncovered other bomb-making materials, including decomposed fireworks explosives wrapped in tin foil, long nail casings also wrapped in foil, BB guns, and green wire, according to the complaint. It is said that
Kleber was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats, weapons possession, and endangering the welfare of a child.
He pleaded not guilty at Thursday's arraignment, and his next court date is Oct. 4.
Mr. Clever, who is an attorney, declined to comment Friday.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz's office also declined to comment, other than to say Kleber has been fired and the investigation is ongoing.
Murad Awaudeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, which advocates for immigrants, said the incident highlights how anti-immigrant rhetoric promoted by some city leaders can lead to violence.
The city's shelter system currently houses more than 60,000 migrants, with a total of more than 200,000 admitted since spring 2022.
“All New Yorkers, regardless of when they came here, have the right to live a life free from violence and threats to their safety,” Awadeh said in a statement.
“Our leaders must do more and stop scapegoating asylum seekers for the problems facing New York City.”
