Man Arrested In Connection To Kansas City 9/11 Memorial Bomb Plot

Federal officials say they have arrested a Florida man and broken up a plot for a terror attack planned for a September 11 memorial event in Kansas City.

CBS News' Jeff Pegues reports that the annual event is called the Kansas City Stair Climb and was set to take place on Sunday to honor the September 11 attacks.

Investigators say they have arrested Joshua Ryne Goldberg, 20, of Orange Park, Florida for distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction.
Pegues reports that he had been under surveillance for weeks and was unaware he was actually talking to an informant.

According to the criminal complaint, Goldberg was in contact, through online communications, with an informant. Between the months of July and September 2015, Goldberg distributed information to the informant on how to manufacture a bomb.

"Get FAR away from the bomb, brother," Goldberg allegedly wrote in a conversation online with an informant to the FBI reports CBS affiliate KCTV. "There's going to be chaos when it goes off. Shrapnel, blood and panicking (expletive for non-Muslims) will be everywhere."
Orange Park man allegedly planned the attack for an event in Kansas City.

KCTV, the CBS affiliate in Kansas City reports that investigators say in a Twitter exchange the suspect says, "Alright so will you be able to drive to Kansas City to carry out the attack?" The confidential informant replies with, "Yes Easily".

He instructed the informant to make a pressure cooker bomb and fill it with nails, metal and other items dipped in rat poison.

Pegues reports that law enforcement initially thought Goldberg was in Australia and he was also on the radar of Australian police. It turns out Goldberg was in a town near Jacksonville, Florida.

On the event website, the Kansas City 9-11 Memorial Stair Climb is described as an event where 343 firefighters embark on a 110 story climb to the top of the Town Pavilion high rise in downtown Kansas City. The event is held in remembrance of the 343 firefighters killed on September 11, 2001.

There are other similar events across the country.

If convicted, the suspect faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.