Prosecutors call ex-Fort Bliss soldier accused in bomb plot a ‘satanist’; judge rules he’s dangerous

A former Fort Bliss soldier indicted in a bombing plot is a “satanist” who wants to overthrow the federal government, prosecutors told a judge at a detention hearing Thursday afternoon.

That indictment charges 24-year-old private first class and infantry soldier Jarrett William Smith with two counts of distributing explosives information. The South Carolina native enlisted in the Army in 2017 and was stationed at Fort Bliss until a transfer over the summer to Fort Riley in Kansas.

Smith made his first court appearance Thursday since his arrest last weekend in Kansas, and pleaded not guilty. Smith appeared at the hearing in a yellow jumpsuit with very short, reddish hair and was brought in wearing handcuffs.

Federal Judge Angel Mitchell ordered Smith held without bond, saying he was both a danger to the public and a flight risk.

“The risk presented here is substantial,” concluded Mitchell.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Mattivi told the judge that Smith had described a “very specific plan” for overthrowing the government which he believed started with attacking the media.

Mattivi indicated Smith discussed building a “Middle-East style” type of bomb that can destroy a military type of vehicle, shared specific instructions on how to construct a detonator, and described a recipe for a cheap and easy gas grenade.

The prosecutor said Smith, who had online conversations with undercover FBI agents, also admitted to providing a napalm recipe to people he knew may use it to harm others. And Mattivi detailed contact and communication Smith allegedly had with a member of a right-wing group, including a face-to-face meeting while in El Paso.

An FBI affidavit filed in support of the charges said Smith discussed a plan to target former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke and other left-leaning activists, and described how to build a bomb that could be triggered by calling a cellphone. It accused him of posting on Facebook that he was interested in traveling to Ukraine to fight with a paramilitary group known as Azov Batallion. That affidavit also alleged Smith suggested targeting an unidentified major news network with a car bomb.

Smith’s court-appointed defense attorney, Rich Federico, who had sought his client’s release pending trial, said Smith would wear an electronic monitoring device and accept any other conditions the judge imposed.

Federico called his client a “gullible, chatroom troll” and said he took the bait from undercover FBI agents.

“They pulled his worst behavior online and made a federal case over it,” Federico said, claiming that Smith was only “reposting what anybody else can find online.”

“Is anyone who can find all of this (information) on Google a danger to the community?” Federico asked.

Smith’s next court hearing will be a status conference scheduled for Nov. 4 in federal court in Kansas.

His court appearance on Thursday came just a day after ABC television station WPDE reported that when Smith was a 15-year-old student, he had appeared on the “hit list” of another teenager who tried in September 2010 to blow up a high school in South Carolina. The federal indictment made no reference to that incident.

The station said that Christian Helms, then 14, brought a gun and other weapons to the school, firing a shot at the school resource officer. Helms had also brought pipe bombs to the school in his backpack and had a list of 13 students who were his intended targets. Smith was among them.

During a video interview recorded in 2011 of Smith and his father after Helms was sentenced to six years, Smith said he was often bullied at school because of his cleft lip.

His father, Chris Smith, said that the teenager who targeted his son idolized the two killers in the Columbine high school attack in 1999.