By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald
TYNGSBORO, Mass. — A manifesto railing against government corruption was left by a suspect accused of leaving pipe bomb-like devices on utility lines near a fire in Tyngsboro last week, the FBI said today.
“I can assume you will go to the lying, bottom feeding, and corrupt organizations like the US attorney and FBI,” reads the note the FBI alleges was written by Danny M. Kelly. “Too bad these corrupt organizations refuse to do anything for the public good. All they care about is what they can steal from the public.”
Kelly, 61, of Chelmsford, is charged with attempting to maliciously damage and destroy property used in interstate and foreign commerce and in an activity affecting interstate and foreign commerce by means of fire.
He is scheduled to make his first appearance in U.S. District Court in South Boston late this afternoon.
If convicted, Kelly faces a minimum of 5 years - and as much as 20 years - in federal prison, according to FBI Special Agent Scott P. McGaunn.
According to an affidavit McGaunn filed with the court this morning, a brush fire Wednesday near where the pipe bomb-like objects were discovered scorched three to four acres of fields off Locust Avenue.
After the blaze was put out, McGaunn said National Grid inspectors checking high-voltage lines that deliver power from Canada to the United States found evidence of vandalism “using several suspicious metallic cylindrical devices, some of which were stuck on the power lines ... The devices can be described as similar to a pipe bomb in appearance – a cylindrical metallic container, with a fuse, with chemical contents. These devices were not attached by authorized National Grid personnel,” McGaunn said.
The note, a transcript of which is included in his affidavit, states, “If you found this letter, the cutters must have worked. Sorry it was necessary to cut your lines, but the good lord has given me no choice. Now you can do something dumb like tell the world your lines were cut.
It continues, blasting the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI.
“If their oath was worth anything, we would not be in this position,” the note says. “If these bottom feeders bother me at all, or I feel they are out to get me, the cutters will be documented on the Internet. (I have picked out a couple of anarchist, free speech, sites.) Once that is done, I do not know what you and the other utilities are going to do! I will have no control over who uses them.”
The author goes on to concede, “Now I fully understand that I cannot win. That is not the point. The point is to get some of the damage our corrupt DOJ, Courts have done to my family in their goal to punish me for standing up for my rights. Unfortunately, I am still the dumb middle class American who trust people. I know that is stupid but without trust we have nothing.”
Kelly pleaded guilty to extortion more than a decade ago after he severed 18 telephone and cable lines in 2004, and then demanded “payment,” McGaunn said.
He was placed on five years’ probation and ordered to pay $378,041 in restitution, of which McGaunn said only $3,103 has been paid off.
McGaunn noted, “The note left at the Tyngsborough fire bore numerous similarities to the communications that Kelly made in 2004 in connection with his prior case.”
McGaunn said the devices attached to the power lines were constructed of metal pipes with notches cut on one end.
“The pipes were sealed with a white compound which could possibly be plaster and/or, drywall, and screws and contained a black powder.” he reported.
He said it appeared a surveyor’s line was used to hoist the devices up to the power lines, where they were hung with nylon rope.
Federal agents confronted Kelly Saturday while he was walking his dog, and he proceeded to make similar complaints about the government, according to the affidavit.
“Kelly said ‘Right’ but then, appeared to catch himself and said that what he knew about the Tyngsboro fire was what he had seen on the news,” McGaunn said. “The agents told Kelly that they knew it was him, and asked for his side of the story to which Kelly responded, ‘then arrest me,’ and they did.”
A search of Kelly’s home yielded, among other evidence, nylon rope, multiple packages of iron oxide and aluminum powder, drywall, plaster, a socket set, a long metal pipe, cutting tools and what appeared to the agents to be live .25mm ammunition.
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