Police stumbled upon a bomb-making factory Sunday in the home of a Columbia professor who specializes in the spread of infectious disease – and are investigating whether he and his roommate have terror ties.
Cops evacuated the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood around the Remsen St. home of Michael Clatts, a medical anthropologist, after finding seven pipe bombs fitted with fuses in his flat, police sources said.
The frightening cache was discovered almost by accident – Ivaylo Ivanov, the man living with Clatts, accidentally shot off the tip of his left index finger and sought police help in the street about 1:15 a.m.
When investigators went to the 37-year-old Ivanov’s apartment, they found the bombs, already capped on both ends and filled with powder. One of the pipe bombs was inserted into a Nerf football, cops said.
A 9-mm. handgun, two ammunition magazines, a 12-gauge shotgun, silencers, a bulletproof vest, a crossbow and bomb-making equipment, including a drill and threading machine that could be used to make pipe bombs, were also recovered, cops said.
Investigators with the NYPD-FBI were questioning Ivanov, a native of Bulgaria, to determine whether he had any terrorism or Russian Mafia connections, a source told the Daily News.
So far neither man has popped up on any foreign criminal watch lists.
Sunday night, police were seeking additional search warrants, possibly for computers, other electronic devices and papers and books.
Ivanov was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful wearing of a body vest and reporting a false incident, cops said. He was expected to be arraigned this morning.
Police were also looking to question Clatts, 50, the Columbia University instructor living with Ivanov, a source told The News.
Clatts is a medical anthropologist with a specialty in epidemiology – the spread of disease among large populations.
He is an associate professor in Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and holds a Ph.D. from the Ivy League school.
The senior director of communication for the school, Randee Levine, said she cannot comment on a police investigation.
Clatts’ exact relationship with Ivanov is unknown. Building residents said Clatts once described himself and Ivanov as roommates, nothing more.
Hmmmmmm….
Cops became suspicious of Ivanov because he first claimed he had been shot by a stranger but then admitted shooting himself. Fearing another person had been injured at the address, police went to the apartment and opened the door to the bomb factory. They immediately sealed the apartment while they got a search warrant, cops said.
Cops called the bomb squad, which evacuated the building and three others nearby and removed the materials. Residents were not allowed back inside for nearly 12 hours.
More at National Terror Alert Response Center.
UPDATE:
Well, isn’t this interesting….This guy, Ivanov has now admitted to “painting a series of swastikas in the neighborhood last fall that marked a spike in hate crimes around the city”.
The swastikas were found on the steps of two synagogues along with leaflets, carrying swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs, found under the windshield wipers of cars along the block.
The Sun also has some additional information on Clatts:
Mr. Clatts is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico and is also conducting a study on HIV in Vietnam, according to the Web site of the National Development and Research Institutes, a Chelsea-based nonprofit organization with which Mr. Clatts was also affiliated. He is also listed as an associate professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, but a spokeswoman for the university, Randee Sacks Levine, said he does not teach at the school and is not on the payroll.
“He is among a large number of individuals who are employed elsewhere in the New York metropolitan area but have a voluntary affiliation, without an office or reimbursement, because of the relevant public health research conducted by him and his employer,” she said in an e-mailed statement today.
Police sources said they were searching for Mr. Clatts, who police and neighbors believe may be out of the country.
UPDATE (January 22):
A man suspected of having pipe bombs and firearms in his apartment made statements implicating himself in anti-Semitic vandalism of houses, cars and synagogues, police said.
But the attorney representing the man, Ivan Ivanov, said on Monday that his client is Jewish.
Investigators were trying to determine whether Ivanov planned to use his arsenal against the synagogues and other sites he had defaced, a ranking police official said.
Ivanov, 37, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Monday on charges of aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, as well as criminal possession of a weapon and reporting a false incident, prosecutors said. Bail was set at $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said.
Adrian Lesher, a lawyer appointed to represent Ivanov, said that his client “basically led police to the apartment in a situation that was almost calculated.”
Lesher said Ivanov is a linguist and Jewish, but did not elaborate. “It makes it less likely that he is a threat. He is an educated person,” he said.
This just keeps on getting stranger and stranger.
MORE at the New York Times.
An Arizona State University woman 
Nice Deb 