Man accused of lighting fire outside Bernie Sanders’ office had past brushes with the law

The guy accused of beginning a fire outside U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office per week in the past has had past brushes with the law involving weapons and a historical past of touring from position to position, prosecutors say in court docket filings arguing that he must stay detained.

Security video presentations Shant Michael Soghomonian throwing liquid at the backside of a door opening into Sanders’ third-floor office in Burlington and environment it on fire with a lighter remaining Friday, in keeping with a testimony filed by way of a unique agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Seven workers operating in the office at the time had been unhurt and in a position to evacuate. The construction’s inner suffered some harm from the fire and water sprinklers. Sanders, an unbiased, used to be no longer in the office at the time.

Soghomonian, 35, who used to be up to now from Northridge, California, had been staying at a South Burlington lodge for just about two months and used to be noticed outside Sanders’ office the day sooner than and the day of the fire, in keeping with the particular agent’s file.

He is dealing with a rate of maliciously destructive by way of method of fire a construction utilized in interstate trade and as a spot of process affecting interstate trade. Soghomonian is recently in custody. He used to be scheduled to look at a detention listening to later Thursday. The Associated Press left a phone message in quest of remark with his public defender.

Prosecutors argue that Soghomonian is a risk to the group and a flight chance and must stay detained.

“The risk to the structure and the lives of the building’s occupants was substantial, showing the defendant’s disregard for the safety of the building’s occupants and the community at large,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lasher wrote in his court petition. “The defendant then fled the area to avoid detection and apprehension.”

In August, Illinois State Police who had stopped Soghomonian for a possible traffic violation seized an AK-47 rifle and two magazines from his vehicle, along with 11.5 grams of cannabis and a book titled “How to Blow up a Pipeline,” prosecutors say. The book makes “an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse.”

During the traffic stop, Soghomonian produced an invalid Oregon driver’s license, prosecutors say. He told police he was traveling to the West Coast. In August alone, his vehicle had been in New York, then Illinois, California and Pennsylvania, Lasher wrote in his petition.

When Soghomonian was in his mid-teens, he was detained for an assault with a firearm in Glendale, California, in 2005, according to prosecutors, who say the case appears to have been later dismissed.

“In other words, defendant has a history of itinerancy, firearms possession, and lack of candor with law enforcement, all exacerbating his risk of flight,” Lasher wrote.