A far-right activist who allegedly staged a bizarre bomb hoax using a Tesla with a husky dog trapped inside the car at the Queens Place Mall Monday was charged with making terroristic threats and other felony charges, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced Wednesday.
Louis Shenker, 22, of Amherst, Massachusetts was arraigned on charges of placing a false bomb or hazardous substance in a sports stadium or arena, mass transportation facility, or enclosed shopping mall and making a terroristic threat, Katz said in a press release Wednesday.
He was ordered held without bail and due back in court Thursday. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.
Around 4:45 a.m. Monday a police officer at the mall in Elmhurst allegedly saw Shenker and an unidentified accomplice standing next to a black Tesla vehicle with its doors, hood and trunk open, Katz said. They were trying to charge the Tesla with an electric bike, the officer said, and told the police officer that they had called a tow truck. Inside the car, the officer saw “blankets, clothing, a dog and a Black Lives Matter sign inside of the vehicle,” according to Katz.
Around 7:35 a.m., a mall employee called the police to report the Tesla was now covered in “blankets, cardboard boxes, a Black Lives Matter sign, a dog inside the vehicle, and a gas tank with wires coming out which appeared to be a bomb,” according to Katz.
There were no explosives inside the car, and police eventually deemed it a "hoax device."
“Sadly, we live in a world where terror attacks are far too real. Fake bombs and hoaxes of any kind create panic and fear. The defendant in this case is accused of making terroristic threats and constructing a device that looked like it was set to explode in a shopping center parking structure. We take all potential threats seriously and the defendant now faces felony charges for his alleged actions,” Katz said in the release.
Shenker is known to NYPD officers and federal agents for past alleged attacks on local progressives. He was arrested last week for allegedly setting fire to part of a Black Lives Matter vigil at Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side as well.
Social media posts affiliated with Shenker suggest he is a member of the "Groyper" movement, a loose network of white nationalists aiming to rebrand the Alt Right. He is an outspoken Trump supporter, who had planned to disrupt the run-off election in Georgia on Tuesday, and has spread conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic.
Shenker was also interviewed by the FBI last month after making threats against Mayor Bill de Blasio at an anti-lockdown protest on Staten Island.
