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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A New Hampshire man appeared in U.S. District Court in Boston Wednesday for allegedly leaving explosives at Harvard University and threatening to detonate them if the college did not pay him money.
FBI agents arrested William A. Giordani, 54, in Nashua, New Hampshire Tuesday on federal charges of aiding and abetting an extortion attempt and conspiracy.
Federal officials said Giordani was allegedly caught on campus surveillance footage placing a tool bag near a bench on the Science Center Plaza on April 13. Giordani then allegedly made a series of phone calls to Harvard police with a device used to disguise his voice, warning that students would be killed unless he received a bitcoin payment with 96 minutes.
According to the affidavit, the caller allegedly notified police of the bag on the plaza to offer proof that their threat was real. Police evacuated the area and the Cambridge bomb squad performed a controlled demolition using a robotic device.
Police wrote that inside the bag they found a "locking safe (similar to what would be found in a hotel room), a package of wire and a quantity of fireworks inside the safe, and a small rectangular box with wires attached to it."
Giordani told police that he was answering a Craigslist ad from someone named "Nguyen Mihn" with a New Jersey phone number who needed items brought to his son and would pay $300 dollars.
According to the FBI, Giordani later admitted that he knew what he did was wrong.
The person who posted the Craigslist ad has not been identified.
Giordani will return to federal court for a detention hearing on Friday.
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