Homeland Security News

Richard Reid, the man who admitted to trying to blow up a jumbo jet in late 2001 with explosives in his shoes, has asked a federal judge to waive the $250,000 fine he faces, saying that he will never be able to pay it while serving life in prison.

In a court filing earlier this week Reid, who is imprisoned in the United States "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado, made the request to U.S. District Judge William Young in Massachusetts.

"I am not now, nor will I, I believe, ever be able to pay this fine," Reid, 43, wrote in a hand-written letter asking that a bankruptcy petition be entered in his name.

Young gave federal prosecutors two weeks to respond to Reid's request.

Source:  Reuters

A Florida man has been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, an inert bomb that he had been given by undercover F.B.I. agents and that he planned to use in an attack on a public beach in Key West to show his support for the Islamic State, the Justice Department said Tuesday. An F.B.I. informant contacted the suspect, Harlem Suarez, who is also known as Almlak Benitez, 23, of Key West, after Mr. Suarez, in Facebook posts, expressed support for the Islamic State militant group in April and requested instructions on how to make a bomb. He told the informant, according to the criminal complaint, that he planned to hide the bomb, which was to contain galvanized nails, in a backpack and to detonate it remotely by cellphone. The name of a lawyer for Mr. Suarez was not available.

Source:  New York Times/Reuters