Queens Man Is One of Two Accused of Trying to Supply Hezbollah

A Queens man hailed as a hero for rescuing a woman from a crazed cabbie in 2007 is one of two men who have been indicted on charges that they tried to provide the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon with weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

The men, Patrick Nayyar of Flushing and Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland, agreed to sell guns, ammunition, vehicles, bullet-resistant vests and night vision goggles to a man who represented himself as a member of Hezbollah but was an F.B.I. informant, officials said.

Mr. Nayyar was in custody on Tuesday. Mr. Mulholland remained at large, according to prosecutors who believe he is currently in Britain, an official said.

Because Mr. Nayyar was hailed as a hero in The Daily News for having rescued a woman in a dispute with a cabdriver in 2007, his lawyer, Martin L. Schmukler said, “This doesn’t sound like real terrorism to me. This sounds like an investigation gone wild.”

In a series of meetings between July and September, Mr. Nayyar, 45, and Mr. Mulholland, 43, “provided the confidential informant with a handgun, a box of ammunition and a pickup truck, believing that the confidential informant would deliver the items” to the militant group in Lebanon, according to a statement from Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

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Colorado Man Charged In Threat on Obama, Mall of America

A 20-year-old southwestern Colorado man has been indicted on charges of threatening to kill President Obama and blow up the Mall of America in Bloomington.

Timothy Ryan Gutierrez, of Cortez, was indicted Tuesday in federal court in Denver. A warrant has been issued for Gutierrez’s arrest, and authorities declined to discuss his whereabouts.

He faces one count each of transmission of threats and falsely threatening to use explosives.

Gutierrez sent an e-mail to the FBI eight days before Obama was inaugurated, the indictment alleges, and wrote: “I’m going to assassinate the new president of the United States of America. PS you have 48 hours to stop it from happening.”

Federal court records also say he e-mailed the FBI with a threat against the mall: “I have rigged 40 pounds of C4 [a moldable plastic explosive] … and my favorite TNT to 7 cars outside the Mall of America.”

Mall officials were “notified immediately” by the FBI and Bloomington police of the threat, said Maureen Bausch, the mall’s executive vice president of business development. The mall was given the all-clear after 16 to 18 hours, Bausch said, once it was determined “the threat wasn’t valid” and a search of the giant retail and entertainment complex turned up nothing suspicious.

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