Daniel Jongyon Park / U.S. Attorney's office
A 32-year-old man from the state of Washington has been charged with materially supporting the man who bombed a fertility clinic in California on May 17, federal authorities announced June 4. He faces up to 15 years in federal prison.
Daniel Jongyon Park, of Kent, was arrested June 3 and charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, according to a DOJ news release. He appeared in court June 4 in the Eastern District of New York.
The release said, citing an affidavit filed with the federal criminal complaint, that Park shipped and paid for about 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate — an explosive precursor — for Guy Edward Bartkus the 25-year-old man from Twentynine Palms, California, who drove a car that contained a bomb to a clinic in Palm Springs.
According to a May 23 press release from FBI Los Angeles’ office, Bartkus’ vehicle, a silver 2010 Ford Fusion sedan, exploded in front of the American Reproductive Centers, killing one person who was in or near the vehicle and causing non-life-threatening injuries to four people who were nearby. Power was restored quickly and no embryos were lost in the attack, the release said.
American Reproductive Centers does not perform abortions, the release said. According to the clinic’s website, its services include in vitro fertilization (IVF), intrauterine insemination (IUI), pre-implantation genetic testing (PGT), in-house egg donation, surrogacy, fertility evaluations, egg freezing, elective single embryo transfer, “LGBTQ family building,” and endoscopic surgery.
The DOJ release confirmed that Bartkus killed himself, injured people, destroyed the building, and damaged nearby buildings in the bombing.
“Bartkus’s attack was motivated by his pro-mortalism, anti-natalism, and anti-pro-life ideology, which is the belief that individuals should not be born without their consent and that non-existence is best,” the release said. “Park — who shares Bartkus’s extremist views — shipped large quantities of explosive precursor materials to Bartkus.”
Park flew to Europe a few days after Bartkus bombed the facility, according to the release. He was detained in Poland on May 30 and later was deported to the US. Law enforcement picked him up shortly after he flew into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
Park and Bartkus spent time at Bartkus’ residence and its garage “running experiments,” the affidavit said, according to the release. Law enforcement found in the garage chemicals commonly used in the creation of homemade bombs.
“This defendant is charged with facilitating the horrific attack on a fertility center in California. Bringing chaos and violence to a facility that exists to help women and mothers is a particularly cruel, disgusting crime that strikes at the very heart of our shared humanity,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the release. “We are grateful to our partners in Poland who helped get this man back to America and we will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.”
The FBI’s Inland Empire Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating. The Palm Springs Police Department; the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department; the FBI’s legal attaché in Warsaw, Poland; officials in Poland; and FBI field office personnel in Seattle, New York, San Diego, Las Vegas, and Portland assisted.
Sarah E. Gerdes and Anna P. Boylan, who are assistant US attorneys for the Central District of California, and Patrick J. Cashman, a trial attorney for the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section, are prosecuting the case.