Following ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski’s footsteps, California man arrested on making Unabomb threats
(Mark William Anten, booking photo not yet available)
Following in the footsteps of the notorious “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, a Los Angeles area man is being held without bond following his arrest for making a series of threats to blow up FBI headquarters in California. Mark William Anten, 52, of Sun Valley, California, was arrested by FBI agents on the morning of December 21 at his residence. That same day, a federal judge ordered Anten to be jailed and held without bond.
His arrest was based on a federal criminal complaint alleging he sent a series of threatening emails to the FBI, including ones in which he threatened to bomb the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and referenced the notorious “Unabomber.” Anten was charged with making threats by interstate communication, a felony offense that carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
Background: Beginning this past July, Anten had sent numerous threatening communications to the FBI, including emails that reference bombing the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office in Westwood. Specifically, on November 2, Anten allegedly emailed FBI agents saying he “embrace[d]” that he was voted most likely in his graduating class to become the next Unabomber – a reference to Theodore John Kaczynski, whose 20-year bombing campaign killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more. Kaczynski was convicted of federal crimes, spent the bulk of his prison sentence in the “SuperMax” federal prison in Colorado, and died in prison on June 10, 2023.
In the November 2 email, Anten allegedly listed similarities between himself and Kaczynski, proclaimed that he was working on a manifesto, and signed his email “Unabomber.”
On November 20, two FBI Task Force Officers interviewed Anten in front of his residence. During the interview, Anten admitted to sending the previous communications and the officers admonished him to stop contacting agents. But despite the FBI’s admonition, Anten’s conduct escalated.
On December 5, Anten allegedly sent a string of threatening emails to FBI agents, in which he threatened to “Unabomb” the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. In one email sent on December 6, Anten allegedly emailed agents, “I can go on a mass murder spree. In fact, it would be very explainable by your actions” and signed it, “SuperMax or Death.” He also sent an email that included an image depicting the results of a Google internet search for “how to make a dirty bomb.”
Later on December 6, Anten visited the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and later emailed agents that he visited their building and would continue to do so. Surveillance footage confirmed Anten’s presence there.
The original Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, recently died by suicide, according to The Associated Press.
Kaczynski, who was 81 and suffering from late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday (June 10, 2023). Emergency responders performed CPR and revived him before he was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later Saturday morning, the people told the AP. They were not authorized to publicly discuss Kaczynski’s death and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Mark William Anten, the new and self-proclaimed 2023 Unabomber, is scheduled for arraignment on January 11, 2024, in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.
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(Source: Lee County Sheriff’s Office)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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