JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A 20-year-old Clay County man has been arrested on federal charges surrounding a bomb plot targeting upcoming 9/11 memorial ceremonies in Kansas City, Mo. , according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Joshua Ryne Goldberg, 20, of Orange Park, is charged with distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction, according to a criminal complaint.
He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Reached at home, Goldberg's father told WTLV-TV , Jacksonville, he was "shocked" by the allegations against his son.
Between July and September, Goldberg had been in contact online with an individual, who was actually an informant. Goldberg had allegedly provided the individual with details on how to fashion a pressure cooker bomb and fill it with nails, metal and other shrapnel dipped in rat poison.
According to the complaint, Goldberg directed the individual to carry out a bombing at a memorial in Kansas City commemorating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Goldberg surfaced on the FBI's radar after he took credit for inspiring the May 3 attack in Garland, Texas, on the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest. That's where two gunmen — later identified as Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi — wearing body armor and carrying rifles opened fire on a police officer and security officer before they were shot and killed by police.
Ahead of that attack, Goldberg's Twitter account — Australi Witness — posted tweets calling for an attack on the art show, posting a map of the Curtis Culwell Center where the show was staged and urging anyone nearby to attack "with your weapons, bombs and knives," the complaint said.
The day of the attack, Twitter user @AusWitness 3 tweeted, "I'M BACK KUFFAR! DIE IN YOUR RAGE!" On the morning of the attack, Simpson's account — Shariah is Light — retweeted that message.
The FBI in July told an informant to contact the social media user calling himself "Australi Witness" and "AusWitness," who had posted messages on pro-Islamic State websites, purporting to be a Lebanese refugee living in Australia. The user turned out to be Goldberg, who was living with his parents at their home on Pine Road in Orange Park, the complaint said.
In a conversation Aug. 17, Goldberg told the informant, "Hopefully there will be some jihad on the anniversary of 9/11." Days later, when the source volunteered to take part in an attack, Goldberg allegedly provided him with detailed plans to manufacture explosives, specifically pipe bombs and a pressure cooker bomb.
The instructions, the FBI reports, were "accurate."
On Aug. 20, Goldberg elaborated. "Have you decided what kind of attack you want to carry out on 9/11, akhi? I was thinking a bombing. ... We could make pipe bombs and detonate them at a large public event... It needs to be big," he's quoted as saying in the indictment.
Later, Goldberg lobbied instead for his informant to manufacture a bomb out of a pressure cooker, akin to the device used in the Boston Marathon bombing, the complaint said. He allegedly suggested his contact fill the device with shrapnel and poison to inflict maximum damage, saying his contact should use "shards of metal and nails. ... Broken glass would probably work too. Just put as much sharp stuff as you can in there."
