03x10 - Home Depot b*mb Plot

[bunniefuu]

- A b*mb plot at
The Home Depot in Long Island.

- Well,
that's pretty serious stuff.

- Why that Home Depot?
Why is this happening?

- What's wrong with this guy?

Why is he putting
so many people in danger?

We had dispatched hundreds
of detectives and agents.

- This is a callous,
calculating,

horrible individual.

But we didn't have a lead
on this guy.

And then at the same time
as this investigation,

there's gonna be a storm.

- Sandy is expected
to head up the coast,

then turn west,

making landfall
near New Jersey

on Tuesday.

- Hurricane Sandy
is threatening

to wipe out
our entire investigation.

- You guys gotta
keep the case going, right?

- We're doing everything
you can possibly do.

And there's not a lot of time.

- In the FBI, we make
a lot of headlines.

Drug busts,

mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down,

we save that for each other

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is "FBI True."

- Cindy Coppola is a 23-year
veteran of the FBI.

She worked on cases
that included

organized crime and terrorism

and took part in multinational
investigations

into drug trafficking
and money laundering.

Coppola finished her career
with the Los Angeles division

running two offices,
supervising investigations,

and providing undercover
security for special events.

- Steve, I'm so glad
we could grab a beer today.

Remind me,
when did you come in?

What year was it?
- I actually started

in the Bureau
back in 1988.

- Steve Troyd was an agent
with the FBI for 28 years.

He was an investigator
on the t*rror1st attacks

of September 11th.

Troyd was also a supervisor

in the FBI's New York
Metro g*ng Task Force.

- How did you end up
getting to LIRA?

- Certain areas,
like Long Island,

had actually developed
quite a g*ng problem.

- But as things happen,

you get there
and you get other cases.

And, you know, we had a b*mb--
an extortionate b*mb--case

targeting Home Depot
around that time.

- I want to hear
about the case now.

A Home Depot case?
- Sure.

- What was that?
- Yeah.

It was
a very successful store.

It was in Huntington,
up Rogues and 10th.

Around the middle of October,

a manager, Andy,
got a letter in the mail.

- What was exactly
in the letter?

- Well,
the letter starts off as:

"To the store manager..."

"I want 2 million,

"or I will shut down
all your Long Island stores

on Black Friday."

"And pay me this one time,

"and you will have my word you
will never hear from me again.

"I will call your store
at noon on October 17th

to see what you decide."

- Well,
that's pretty serious stuff.

- Yeah.

- Obviously,
the manager's thinking,

"Holy sh*t, there's a b*mb
in one of my stores."

Home Depot,
what did they want to do?

- They evacuate The Home Depot.

And the b*mb squad go to
the lighting department area,

which was indicated
in the ransom letter.

They look through
the lighting department,

and they find the b*mb.

- A b*mb plot at
The Home Depot in Long Island.

The FBI confirming a pipe b*mb

planted inside
on or near a shelf

where innocent people
could find it and get hurt.

- This person had rigged it

so that there was a string
attached to the shelving.

And if they pulled the box
off the shelf,

that would trigger
the expl*si*n.

Using one of those robots...

They move the b*mb
into an area

where no one's gonna be hurt
if it goes off.

They X-ray it. They see
there's a pip in there.

They decide they're gonna
sh**t the b*mb with a round

that's supposed to knock off
the endcap on the pipe

'cause the pipe
has two endcaps on it.

And when they're
in the process of doing that,

the thing explodes.

So it was a real b*mb.

Nobody got hurt,
thank God,

but it was pretty damaging
for a small pipe b*mb.

You know,
it shot into a steel door,

and it left a lot of damage
on the door.

It shot through the ceiling.

And the walls had debris.

And I was just,
like, thinking,

my God,
what's wrong with this guy?

Why is he putting
so many people in danger?

This is a person
who doesn't care

about, you know, your regular
guy going into Home Depot

to buy a light
for his bathroom.

The question in my mind
was, like, who's doing this?

- Going back to the letter,
did you send it to the lab?

I mean, 'cause the lab
can detect prints, anything.

- So the letter was sent
for prints and DNA analysis.

- Anything off of the b*mb? No?

- We didn't get
any clues from that.

But they did find cat hair
in the letter.

- You guys find cat hair?

- There's cat hairs
in the letter, yeah.

- That's a little strange,

but at the same token,
he's a little crazy.

So what did you do then?

- We look
at the most likely suspect--

in this case,
the manager--

you know, 'cause he's the guy
that brings the letter

to our attention,
so right away, it's like,

hmm, is he doing
something wrong?

We went into Home Depot,
and we met with the manager.

But he was a good guy.
He cooperated completely.

He loved working there.
He was happy to be there.

He was bragging
about the company.

He thought that the corporation
was good to the people.

And I ruled him out
as a suspect pretty quickly.

The b*mber said in his letter

he was gonna call back
the manager on October 17th.

We had agents standing by
at the location

waiting
for that one phone call.

And we were going
to try and trace him.

- So the manager
gets the call.

- Yeah, he gets
the ransom call at noon,

and we were listening
to every word.

- The phone call
was kind of brief.

- What did you learn
from that phone call?

- The fact that they knew
what number to call.

We're suspicious
that it's an employee.

- So it wasn't the
general number for Home Depot.

It was a specific extension.
- Yeah, it was

a specific extension
that he had chosen.

And he showed
that he had

at least done
some surveillance work.

And he knew where he had
a internal phone list,

so it made us think
that this is somebody

that is working there.

So we were looking
through lists of employees

who had been
disciplinary problems,

had quit
under bad circumstances,

but nobody stood out.

And then the first phone call,
we were able to identify

through the computer system
at Home Depot.

And it came back to a phone

that was one of those
pay-as-you-go phones.

So that's our one solid link.

But it was hard to kind of
track who the buyer was

because it was purchased
with cash from a 7-Eleven.

And I have two agents.

And they look at the history
of the phone.

So we were able
to identify that phone number.

So then we check
some of the numbers.

I saw that there was, like,
these calls months before.

Calls out to Craigslist ads.

When we had, like,
a team of analysts,

they followed up
on the phone numbers.

And they looked
at the Craigslist ads.

They kind of
subpoena it backwards.

- Right, to find out
who was buying this stuff

or potentially
looking at the ads.

- Exactly. Exactly.
- Yeah.

- And they found
that this target is buying

a jet ski, scuba gear,

some oxygen bottles.

- So that number
that called The Home Depot...

- Right.
- Had called these Craigslist--

- Yeah, and they were
getting descriptions

from the people that were
selling stuff to the subject,

like he's in a green van--

in a Ford van, I believe.

White male.
- Oh, well, that helps.

- Yeah.
- That helps, right?

'Cause you didn't
have anything.

- You're developing
some information--

some identifying information.

But we still don't know
who he is.

And then a few days later,

a second ransom letter arrives
at Home Depot.

Four days before Black Friday,

the biggest shopping day
of the year.

The letter reads...

"To keep from being shot
from a distance,

I am going to be wired up
like a Christmas tree."

"I'm going to deposit
in one of your stores

"the morning of the drop

"a new device I designed.

"If you drop off anything

"besides
U.S.-circulated currency,

I will end Black Friday."

This letter caused
a lot of activity on our part

because it basically shows us
how callous this individual is.

- And who knows if there was
another b*mb somewhere else?

Right?
- Absolutely.

And at the same time
of this investigation,

we were hearing on the news
that there was gonna be

this incredible storm coming,
you know?

- Hurricane Sandy
is churning its way

up the east coast this evening,

heading for landfall
in the mid-Atlantic region

early next week.

- I said, you know, these
weather guys are always wrong.

You know?
- Yeah.

- So I don't think there's
gonna be a storm, you know?

But if a storm
does hit the east coast,

the investigation
could be turned on its head.

- So what do you guys do next?

- The concern was
that it was somebody

who was, you know,
working at Home Depot,

was querying
this list of Craigslist sites.

We did have people
that we interviewed

and questioned
for long periods of time

because they were electricians

and they had basic skills
to create a b*mb.

- Yeah, I mean,
well, if you think about it,

people that work at Home Depot
have some handyman skills.

- But they were
not panning out.

- So were you able
to finally track them down?

- There's an IP address.

By stepping out
into the modern world

and using a phone,
he kind of revealed himself.

And then we were able
to subpoena some information--

- Sure, you can do ping order.

Or everything.
- Yeah, you can do everything.

And we start getting
some specialists involved

who track cell towers.

And we found him.

- This guy matches
the description

of the guy who was
buying stuff off of Craigslist.

And it turns out
that he has a green van,

just like the target
that we were looking for.

And he's an employee
of Huntington Home Depot.

- What's his name?
- Daniel Patrick Sheehan.

And it's a relief
to think that,

okay, we have
a viable subject here

because, you know,
he's saying

that he's gonna plant
more devices in the Home Depots

and, you know, we're hoping
to stop that if we can.

- You know where he lives now,
right?

- Yeah, he lives
in a nice little home--

a tudor home--
in Deer Park.

And he's got a wife
and a child.

And they have two cars.

- So you know
the guy's name now,

you know where he lives,
all that stuff.

So what do you guys do next?

- The next thing we're gonna do
is we're gonna put,

you know, a tracking device
on him to keep tabs on him

to have him
under surveillance--

technical surveillance,
physical surveillance,

phone surveillance.

We had
all these different parts,

and it all came together
very quickly.

But we don't want
to scare him off

because we still
need more evidence.

And to make matters worse,

Superstorm Sandy
was about to hit.

- Businesses are bracing
for Hurricane Sandy.

And residents are hoping
walls of sandbags will hold.

- There were thing happening
around me that I saw--

that, like, people were,
you know, boarding up windows.

Nobody had a second to do
anything for their families.

- Right. And you guys got
to keep the case going, right,

in spite of this storm?

- Yeah, and this storm
is bringing even more people

to Home Depot who are
desperate for supplies.

We got to catch this guy.

He was threatening something

that could have
terrible consequences.

- The entire eastern seaboard
of the United States

has been put on alert.

- This thing hits, and
I'm sitting in my living room,

thinking, oh, man.

- Welcome
to "CBS This Morning."

As daylight arrives,
much of the east coast

is waking up to see
the full devastation

of Superstorm Sandy.

- The storm was pretty bad.

There were some trees down.

There were power outages
all over the place.

- Did you lose power?
- I lost power.

- Your whole life's disrupted,
you know?

- Oh, yeah,
terrible disruption.

You know, you're sleeping
in the cold, dark.

I'm charging my phone
in the car.

You know, you're showering
in the gym, at the office,

'cause they have power there.

- And your suspect
is still at large, right?

- We had sent a detective
to his house

on some other ruse call

just to see what was
going on at the house.

- Don't you have
enough evidence to arrest him?

- No, we needed
to catch him with the phone,

but it had been turned off
for a while.

So I figured
I'd walk into Home Depot

and try to find him myself.

He's in the window
and doors department.

I found him.

When I met him face-to-face,

it was strange
to see how normal he was.

And I said, "Hey,
are there any generators?"

And then, you know,
he said, like,

"Home Depot was unprepared."

You know, and I thought to
myself, oh, that's interesting.

You know, he's critical...
both: Of Home Depot.

- He's obviously angry with the
corporate structure, you know?

Even if it was
just a passing comment,

that was just his gut reaction.

And I said, "Okay, thank you,"
and I just moved along.

You know,
it kind of clicked with me

what kind of person he was.

- Disgruntled.
- Disgruntled.

Cynical, right?

Everybody's out for themselves.

- When did you guys
get enough evidence

to arrest this guy?

- We're doing everything
you can possibly do.

We're waiting for his burner
phone to be turned back on

so we can see what he's up to.

And I get a call from the
surveillance operation guys.

And they're like,

"The phone just went on
for, like, ten seconds."

- Oh, my gosh, finally.

- And this guy is
in a Home Depot parking lot.

It's not the one he works in.

He worked
in the Huntington one,

and he went
to the Commack one.

And he basically
turned the phone on.

And he's sitting in his van

in the Commack
Home Depot parking lot.

We're like, okay.
We told the SO guys,

"Keep on him.
We'll be right there."

A bunch of us
jumped in the car.

So we're driving up there now
and find out

he's driving
around the mall slowly.

- But you don't know
what he's doing.

- We had no clue.

For all we knew,
he could be using the phone

to detonate a b*mb.

So we had to act fast.

So we tell SO to stop him.

And we're gonna
engage this guy.

So they stop his van.

SO goes over to him.

It's a very tense situation.

And he says,
"Hey, listen,

"you know, we're getting a
report about some stolen iPads

from a location,"
an Apple Store, something,

"and your van
matches the description

"of the van that was
observed in the area

"during one of the robberies.

"And would you mind
giving us consent

so we can just eliminate you?"

And, you know,
he's like, "Yeah.

No, I didn't steal no laptops."

You know, he's
completely oblivious to it.

And then SO looks in the van,
and he sees the Tracfone.

And the battery's out of it.

And he puts the phone together
and calls me.

- Oh, with the phone?

Oh, that's awesome.
- Yeah.

So I'm like,
it's the phone.

And then we decided
we're gonna arrest him.

- Awesome, right away.
- Yeah, which is great.

- That's great, yeah.
- Great collaborative effort.

- What was his reaction?

- He's basically in denial.

Well, we get him back
to the office.

We had some guys there that
were ready to interview him.

And he's making up stories
like,

"That phone is
one of the guys'--

"the day laborers'.

"I let them use that phone.

You know,
rather than my phone--"

- So he's bullshitting.
- He's bullshitting.

So we caught him
with the burner phone.

It's a pretty damning piece
of evidence.

And we had
the two letters he wrote.

Then he's in a position
where, "Okay, you got me."

But now he wants
to talk about what he did,

you know, like,
how it's a ego thing,

like how smart he was,

like how he put cat hair
in one of the letters

to throw us off.

And he doesn't have one.
He took a cat off the street.

Put hairs...

- Jesus, that's weird.

- Just think of the time
that this guy spent on this.

You know,
and then the Craigslist stuff

was all a part of his plan
to get the money.

The wetsuit, the air bottles,
the jet ski--

he was gonna set up a scenario

where he had this jet ski
in Huntington Harbor.

And he went out
and he bought a cooler

that he attached
to the jet ski.

And then, with his wetsuit

and his basically
reserve bottles of oxygen,

he was gonna be
under the jet ski in the water,

and we were gonna
place the money

in the cooler
on the jet ski.

And then he was gonna
take the money out

from underneath the jet ski.

- Get out.
- I swear.

- It's like he's watching
too many James Bond movies.

- If you know what
a million dollars looks like

when it's a pile of money
on a table, it's a giant brick.

- Yeah, he's not gonna
be able to, like--

- And these little bottles?

'Cause we had them
in evidence.

And he's like, "Yeah,
they have 60 breaths each."

And I'm like,
"You know how quickly

you can go through 60 breaths?"
- 60 breaths?

- You know,
and you're underwater,

and you're exerting yourself,

and you're trying
to move this money.

And, you know,
the whole scheme

depends on whether
we're gonna cooperate.

- So did you finally find out

the reason why he wanted
to b*mb Home Depot?

- He has
these ridiculous reasons.

One, he's like,
"Well, they only gave me

"nine hours a week to work.

And they made me work
on my birthday."

And I'm like, "Okay."

- Oh, I worked many
of my birthdays.

- I can't remember
the last time I had--

I used to go out and
arrest people on my birthday

'cause that was,
like, a great thing.

And then he goes, "And they
took my Homer Award away."

- Homer Award?
What is that?

- He goes,
"It was a $100 gift card."

And then...
- Oh, my.

- All right,
so you want $2 million

because you lost
your $100 gift card?

- So did you guys proffer him?

And did they offer a plea?
- Yeah.

So, you know, he's looking
at 30 years for what he did.

But he's insisting, you know,
the b*mb wasn't active,

the fuse was not attached.

But it doesn't matter.
He's gonna go to trial.

His wife is in the back
of the courtroom.

And I looked at her face.

And you could just see she was
so angry that he did this.

- Yeah, a shame.
- And, you know, he's like,

"Honey, I did this for us."
- Yeah, I know.

- It was just like, oh, my God,
what happened to this guy?

He was like a stone cold k*ller
blowing things up,

and now he's worried
his wife is gonna,

you know,
kick his a*s.

- His attorney says
he was depressed

over losing work hours.

- The ignition system
that he created,

he deliberately left incomplete
and left out key components

so that it could not ignite.

So that's the defense.

- He's trying to say,
"Oh, I did an extortion,

"but I didn't use a b*mb 'cause
a b*mb would've been reckless.

A b*mb would've hurt people,
and that's not me."

- But it was explodable, right?

- It blew up
when we tried to deactivate it.

- He's trying to minimize.

He was trying
to minimize basically.

- Yeah, he's finagling
a lesser sentence.

- Sure.
- And I said,

"You go to trial
and you blow trial,

"you got 30 years
you're looking at.

"You're a 50-year-old man.

Like,
your life is over essentially."

"No, no."
I said,

"If you get a plea
for ten years,

you'll still be able to go back
and be with your son."

And he said to me,
"No, in my opinion,

ten years is as much as 30."

And I'm like,
"You're quitting.

"You're quitting on your kid.
You're quitting on your wife.

You're quitting on your life."
- Yeah, himself.

- "And, you know,
you're looking

to blame other people
for your failure."

But, I mean,
I was of the opinion, like,

how hard am I gonna try
to convince this guy?

We had him dead to rights.

The case was solid.
- Sure.

- A seasoned prosecutor
is gonna destroy this guy.

And--
- You guys are gonna win.

- We were gonna win.
- Yeah.

I'm so glad we got a chance
to get to know each other.

- Yeah. No, it was nice.
- And have a beer, you know?

- Yeah.
- Congrats.

Good job on the case.
- Thank you. Thank you.

- I'm glad you're retired,
but I've got one question.

- Uh-oh.

- Do you still shop
at Home Depot?

- All the time.
- Awesome.