“Don’t touch the keys in the ignition or else something bad will happen,” the man said, according to court documents filed in federal court Wednesday. “I don’t care if children or veterans are harmed by the bomb. I only care about speaking to the president.”
Authorities scrambled to close off downtown streets around McPherson Square early Wednesday. Within 2 1/2 hours members of the District police department’s explosive ordnance team determined the threat was false. Traffic returned to normal by 6:45 a.m., before the worst of the morning rush, and a 44-year-old man from Pennsylvania was under arrest.
Krzysztof Wasik, of Hazle Township, Pa., was later charged in the District’s federal court with threatening and conveying false information related to the use of an explosive. The offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Wasik’s attorney requested a mental health examination and he is being held without bond until a detention hearing scheduled for Monday.
It was the second scare near a prominent government building since Sunday, when police said a man from Florida parked a car near the U.S. Capitol containing three guns and more than 100 rounds of ammunition. A suspect in that case was ordered to undergo a psychological exam.
In the White House case, police said the suspect left his semi-cab tractor at the corner of Vermont Avenue and H Street NW, just north of Lafayette Park. At about 4:30 a.m., the man approached a uniformed U.S. Secret Service officer at the White House fence line on Pennsylvania Avenue and said he wanted to speak to the president about regulations related to semi-trucks and fines he’d had to pay, according to an affidavit signed by U.S. Secret Service officer Kara Klupacs.
“I know what it takes to get things done around here,” Wasik said, according to the affidavit, before telling the officer that he had a bomb in his truck.
Authorities detained Wasik. and the Veterans Affairs Building was evacuated as they checked out the truck and the threat.
Brian Leary, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, said the president and his family were home at the time, but the White House was not locked down. Leary said Wasik does not appear on a Secret Service watch list.
Dressed in jeans and a black sleeveless t-shirt, Wasik appeared in U.S. District Court Wednesday afternoon, surrounded by three deputy U.S. marshals. When asked by the courtroom clerk to swear to tell the truth, Wasik responded after a long pause, “I don’t know the truth.”
His hometown of Hazle Township has a population of about 10,000 spread over 52 square miles in Luzerne County in eastern Pennsylvania, near where interstates 80 and 81 meet. Telephone and Internet listings show a Kryzsztof Wasik Trucking Co., but no one answered its phone number.
Attempts to reach relatives were unsuccessful. No one answered a number listed for his home, but a woman who lives there told the Times Leader newspaper in Wilkes-Barre that she had separated from Wasik two weeks earlier and that she believes her husband had stopped taking his medication.
The woman, who did not give the newspaper her name, said the Secret Service had called her about 5 a.m. “He’s a great guy. He just needs help,” the woman told the newspaper. “He’s very well liked by everybody. ... He’s into the Bible and God. He’s a good citizen. He must have just snapped because he stopped taking his medications.”
Luzerne County First Assistant District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said Wasik has no criminal record in his jurisdiction. He said Wasik received a citation charging him with reckless driving in 1997, but the case was dismissed when the police officer failed to show up in court. His name does not show up in federal court records.
In Sunday’s case, Ty C. Mitchum, 59, of Clearwater, Fla., was charged with carrying weapons onto Capitol grounds. On Tuesday, authorities said in court that Mitchum told police at the time of his arrest that he was in Washington regarding his role in “helping take down Osama bin Laden’s terror.”
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