San Diego Man Questioned in Federal Reserve Terrorist Plot

Federal officials questioned a San Diego man in connection with a plot to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City.

The primary suspect in the case is 21-year-old Quazi Nafis, who was taken into custody Wednesday morning. Nafis allegedly tried to detonate a parked van filled with what he believed were explosives.

Sources told NBC news and NBC 7 San Diego that Howard Willie Carter II may have been a co-conspirator.

FBI agents raided an apartment on Winona Ave in City Heights. Carter's roommate Curtis Morehead said agents asked him to identify Carter, who also went by "Yaqueen", on a terrorist watch list.

A man named "Yaqueen" was identified as a co-conspirator of Nafis in federal documents.

"They showed me a single sheet of legal copy paper with his picture, several different angles and views," Morehead said.

Carter wasn't home and agents spent hours combing through his room.

Documents reveal that Carter was believed to have hard drives full of child pornography.

Morehead said he had been living with Carter for a month and that he never suspected anything like this.

"It bugs me that he was living here," Morehead said. "Personally had I known he was doing stuff like that, I might have approached him."

Carter was arrested in San Diego on unrelated charges and was treated by federal authorities as a possible co-consipirator in the plot.

Law enforcement officials in San Diego could not comment on the man in custody Wednesday night.

The Department of Justice claims that Nafis came to the U.S. on a student visa in January for the specific purpose of launching a terrorist attack. He reported having overseas connections to the al-Qaeda terrorist group. 

Officials said the plot was a sting operation monitored by the FBI and NYPD, and the public was never at risk. What he thought were explosives were rendered inoperable by law enforcement.

Nafis, a Bangladeshi National, faces charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, and provide material support to Al Qaeda. Carter was arrested on other criminal charges, because he did not act on any plot.

On Thursday, Carter was appointed a defense lawyer, Stephen White.

White told NBC 7 he has not yet met his client.

In federal court Thursday Carter wore a white jumpsuit as he listened to charges of three counts of child pornography.

The indictment has no information about Carter’s possible connection to a plot to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in NYC but sources tell NBC News that the City Heights resident was a co-conspirator in the foiled bombing plot that could have injured or killed thousands.
 

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