Ex-Army soldier jailed on arson charge after fiery attack on Manhattan federal building
NEW YORK (AP) — A former U.S. Army soldier was charged with arson and jailed without bail after prosecutors say he confessed to carrying out a fiery attack on a Manhattan federal office building where immigration hearings are held.
Andrew Arrabaca, 43, plotted the attack for months and considered striking other New York City targets before setting a fire, lighting fireworks and firing a pellet gun Monday morning outside 26 Federal Plaza, Assistant U.S. Attorney Samantha Fry said.
Arrabaca told investigators that he understood people could've been hurt or killed and that he he was willing to accept his own death in the process, Fry said. She called his actions “calculated, targeted and unacceptably dangerous."
Three people sustained minor injuries, including a person who had an immigration court hearing at the building, which also houses offices for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. The building has been a magnet for protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Arrabaca, wearing glasses and a black sweatshirt, sat quietly between his lawyers in Manhattan federal court Tuesday, nodding at times as they spoke with him and explained what was happening. He was not required to enter a plea. The charge, arson or explosion causing damage to U.S. government property, carries a minimum sentence of seven years in prison.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky ordered Arrabaca jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, rejecting his lawyer's suggestion that he be sent to a locked ward at a Veterans Health Administration facility for a mental health evaluation. Instead, the judge said she wants Arrabaca to be evaluated at the jail as soon as possible.
“This is an individual who, notwithstanding what he appears to have done, has served our country and is quite clearly ill,” Tarnofsky said.
Arrabaca was living in his car and slept in a park the night before the attack, Fry said. In 2020, she said, he was prescribed medication for a mental health condition but he stopped taking it about a year later.
A military-style helmet that authorities say Arrabaca wore during the attack had words on it suggesting he was suicidal, defense lawyer Jennifer Brown said.
Brown noted that Arrabaca has no criminal history and, until recently, had a long history of employment. He is a U.S. citizen and a lifelong New York resident, she said. He grew up in Queens, public records show, and was linked to an address in Poughkeepsie.
Arrabaca repaired Patriot missile systems while in the Army from 2001 to 2004. He also served a year in the New York Army National Guard. He had no deployments and left the Army as a specialist, an Army spokesperson said.
Fry, arguing for jail instead of hospitalization or release, argued that Arrabaca is a danger to the community and a flight risk. Brown conceded “the nature of this offense is undoubtedly dangerous,” but that Arrabaca’s “expressed intention was not to cause damage to people but to cause damage to property.”
Arrabaca started planning the attack as far back as January and went to upstate New York to buy weapons and Pennsylvania to buy fireworks, Fry said. Outside the Manhattan building, he was tackled by a security officer after authorities say he dumped gasoline outside an employee entrance and set the sidewalk on fire.
Arrabaca had two axes, three fixed-blade knives, a hammer, a machete and a wagon affixed with a sign that said “ICE Off Our Streets," authorities said. As he was being arrested, he made “anti-government and anti-American statements” and derogatory remarks about ICE, James Barnacle, the head of the FBI’s New York field office, said at a news conference on Monday.
Fry said that while only a few people were injured, “this attack could have ended much more tragically” at a building where hundreds of federal employees work, parents leave children at a daycare and members of the public use a post office inside.
Fry said there is “overwhelming evidence of his guilt” including “his own fulsome confession."
Tarnofsky said she seriously considered the psychiatric ward option but rejected it because she wasn’t convinced Arrabaca would comply with treatment. Before, such services were available to him but he didn't utilize them, she said.
“The crime you’re charged with is troubling," she said, addressing Arrabaca directly. “The nature and circumstances, the fact that it was planned over time and carried out at a time when it could cause significant harm.”
“This wasn’t done on a Sunday when no one was at the building," the judge said.
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Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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