BOSTON (WHDH) – 19-year-old UMass Boston student Owen McIntire appeared in federal court in Boston and is accused of firebombing a Tesla dealership in Kansas City last month.
McIntire had nothing to say outside court, and inside court said only “yes ma’am” and “yes your honor.”
Prosecutors released images of the makeshift Molotov cocktail they say he used. Investigators say McIntire was caught on surveillance video, tossing the firebomb at a Tesla and torching two of the hundred thousand dollar cars along with their charging stations.
Prosecutors say McIntire was home on spring break when he carried the attack and was arrested last week when he returned to college.
The Kansas City firebombing and other attacks on Teslas, seemingly in protest of Tesla owner Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration’s charge to cut thousands of federal jobs and shrink the government.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has vowed to vigorously prosecute the Tesla attacks as domestic terrorism.
The prosecutor Thursday at a detention hearing in Boston argued that McIntire was too dangerous to release under any conditions, but the judge disagreed.
The judge released McIntire to his parents’ custody under home confinement with a GPS bracelet.
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