immigration crackdown<\/a>.<\/p>\nArrabaca, wearing glasses and a black sweatshirt, sat quietly between his lawyers at his initial appearance in Manhattan federal court. He nodded at times as they 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.<\/p>\n
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky ordered Arrabaca jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, rejecting his lawyer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an individual who, notwithstanding what he appears to have done, has served our country and is quite clearly ill,\u201d Tarnofsky said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Fry, arguing for jail instead of hospitalization or release, argued that Arrabaca is a danger to the community and a flight risk. Brown conceded \u201cthe nature of this offense is undoubtedly dangerous,\u201d but that Arrabaca\u2019s \u201cexpressed intention was not to cause damage to people but to cause damage to property.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Arrabaca had two axes, three fixed-blade knives, a hammer, a machete and a wagon affixed with a sign that said \u201cICE Off Our Streets,\u201d authorities said. As he was being arrested, he made \u201canti-government and anti-American statements\u201d and derogatory remarks about ICE, James Barnacle, the head of the FBI\u2019s New York field office, said at a news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n
Fry said that while only a few people were injured, \u201cthis attack could have ended much more tragically\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Fry said there is \u201coverwhelming evidence of his guilt\u201d including \u201chis own fulsome confession.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tarnofsky said she seriously considered the psychiatric ward option but rejected it because she wasn\u2019t convinced Arrabaca would comply with treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crime you\u2019re charged with is troubling,\u201d she said, addressing Arrabaca directly. \u201cThe nature and circumstances, the fact that it was planned over time and carried out at a time when it could cause significant harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis wasn\u2019t done on a Sunday when no one was at the building,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A former U.S. Army soldier was charged with arson and jailed without bail on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[114651,5219,114086,114653,114652,114650,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-302574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-arson-charge","tag-attack","tag-federal-building","tag-fiery-attack","tag-former-army-soldier","tag-judge-ruling","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}