Man Arrested On Child Porn, Linked To NYC Bomb Plot

After a Bangladeshi was arrested in New York City Wednesday on charges of plotting to blow up the New York Fed, law enforcement officials announced Thursday night the arrest of his alleged accomplice on unrelated child pornography charges.

According to the New York Times, Howard Willie Carter II, was found with 1,000 images of child pornography and three videos during an FBI raid on his San Diego home.

The incriminating material was found in a laptop and a hard drive that had been tossed in the trash outside of Carter’s apartment. Evidence surrounding the laptop and hard drive pointed toward Carter’s ownership.

The laptop also contained email correspondence that linked him to Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, the man arrested in Wednesday’s attempt to attack the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Emails were sent to Carter under the alias “Yaqeen,” a conspirator Nafis claimed he was in contact with while planning the unsuccessful attack.

Despite his link to Nafis, Carter will not be facing terrorism charges, authorities said, though he will be prosecuted for the child pornography in his possession.

While Nafis believed he was preparing to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb outside the New York Fed, a few blocks from Wall Street, he was actually under surveillance by an FBI sting operation which had provided him with harmless materials.

When Nafis attempted to detonate the bomb, located in a van near the Fed, with his cell phone, he was immediately arrested and charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and with providing material support to al Qaeda.

The FBI sting operation had been in place for months, monitoring Nafis and ensuring that he could not cause any real damage. Nafis met with undercover agents several times and unintentionally implicated “Yaqeen,” or Carter, in the planned attacks.

Nafis’ family in Bangladesh was recently informed of his arrest in New York. His father insists that Nafis is a quiet, shy young adult with no ties to any terror groups.

"I don't believe my son has any link to any terror groups," Quazi Mohammad Ahsanullah, Nafins’ father who works as a banker in Dhaka, told CNN. "I urge the government of Bangladesh to bring back my son."

"We're really stunned," he said. "We couldn't believe our eyes. ... We couldn't believe our ears. It came to us out of the blue."