An ex-convict arrested in a plot to carry out a pro-Islamic State attack at a bar on New Year’s Eve is a panhandler who had been asked to leave in the past, the bar’s owner said. The man’s family said he had a long history of mental problems.
Federal authorities have said Emanuel Lutchman, 25, sought to prove he was worthy of joining Isis by leading an attack in Rochester with a machete and knives that were provided by an FBI informant.
After authorities announced his arrest on Thursday, Lutchman’s father and mother described a man who had had psychiatric troubles since childhood, had recently stabbed himself in a suicide attempt and, they said, would not have conducted the attack on his own.
“The boy is impressionable,” his father, Omar Lutchman, told NBC News. “First he was a Blood, then he was a Crip, then he became a Muslim. He’s easily manipulated.”
The father and the suspect’s grandmother, Beverley Carridice-Henry, told the network Lutchman is married and has a two-year-old son but had been having marital and money problems. He was frustrated over being unable to find work and care for his family, they said.
“He got very emotional and sick about that,” Carridice-Henry told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester.
Authorities said in court papers that Lutchman said he received direction from an overseas Isis member and planned to carry out the attack on Thursday.
“I will take a life, I don’t have a problem with that,” the court papers quoted Lutchman as saying.
Lutchman’s lawyer, Steven Slawinski, declined to comment. Lutchman has been charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists.
While authorities did not identify the target of the alleged attack, a co-owner said it was Merchants Grill, a sports pub. The US attorney’s office for western New York did not return a phone call on Friday seeking confirmation.
Lutchman lived nearby and had repeatedly come into the bar asking for money, co-owner John Page told local media. He told WHEC-TV that Lutchman had been asked to leave several times.
He “caused more trouble than positive”, Page told the Democrat and Chronicle.f
Lutchman was described in court papers as having a long criminal history, including a 2006 robbery conviction that led to a five-year prison sentence.
Lutchman’s former stepmother, Charma Lutchman, told the Democrat and Chronicle that he spent part of his childhood living with his grandparents in New York City. She said that while young he was struck by a car, an accident that transformed him from a happy-go-lucky boy to a more withdrawn child.
The newspaper reported that Lutchman spent four months in a Rochester jail in 2015 on misdemeanor charges of petit larceny and menacing his girlfriend.
Lutchman was scheduled to appear in state court on 11 January on the domestic violence charges. It is likely that date will be postponed.