Skip to main content

Taliban Hopeful Gets 15 Years for Failed Bomb Plot

CBN

Share This article

A California man who plotted to blow up a bank last year has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

Matthew Llaneza, 29, tried to detonate an SUV full of chemicals in hopes of getting accepted into the Taliban

The vehicle and chemicals were supplied by FBI agents agent who pretended to have Taliban connections. An undercover agent helped Llaneza build the phony car bomb.
    
He was arrested as he tried to set off the fake explosion.

Llaneza has been diagnosed several times as suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder -- something the U.S. Attorney's Office said it had taken into account.

"Defendants' conduct here was very serious. He knowingly and willfully participated in a plan to blow up a bank building. He created the plan and selected the target. He helped build what he believed to be a large bomb to accomplish the plan. He drove the bomb to the bank building, placed it in a location designed to maximize its destructive force, then attempted to detonate it twice," Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Caputo wrote in a pre-sentencing memo.

"Had the bomb been real, it would have destroyed at least a portion of the building and easily could have killed or seriously injured innocent bystanders," he said.

Share This article