Feds charge Newton man really wants to blow up Azerbaijanis, but say all he's actually done so far is set fire to his dorm room

A Newton man who now lives in the Armenian capital of Yerevan this week became an international fugitive when a federal judge in Boston signed an arrest warrant charging him with lying to federal and local officials who wanted to know why he and his belongings kept showing traces of both black powder and an even more volatile chemical sometimes used to make explosives.

Officials say Aram Brunson, 21, of Armenian descent and fluent in Armenian, has spent much of the past two years experimenting with creating explosives - and with creating a series of guides for fellow Armenians on how to strike back at Azerbaijanis over the war their two countries have fought pretty much since they both became independent during the breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Brunson first came to official attention on Jan. 2, 2023, after an explosion and fire in his sixth-floor dorm room at the University of Chicago, where he was then a sophomore, according to an affidavit filed for the arrest warrant by an FBI agent on the case.

Firefighters evacuated the dorm, but one missing person was Brunson. Firefighters requested the Chicago Police bomb squad after they extinguished the fire and found "approximately two pounds of potassium nitrate, one pound of charcoal, several grams of sulfur, and several bottles of isopropyl alcohol" in the room, all precursors of black powder, or gunpowder, which can be used to make things blow up.

A university police officer contacted Brunson by phone; the student said he had had an accident cooking on a hot plate - which he was not allowed to have - but agreed to speak to return to the dorm and speak with investigators. He showed up later that night with his mother and was met by FBI agents who had joined the case. And now, he allegedly said, he admitted to making the powder, but said it was to re-create a YouTube video in which somebody put an iPhone in a bucket of black powder and then let it, as a little show for some friends in a cottage outside Boston.

With a search warrant, the FBI then seized and searched his laptop. The affidavit states they found no evidence of any search or link related to the video, but instead found 10 videos in Armenian, all made and narrated by Brunson, on "how to form, fund and arm a revolutionary group" and how to select the best explosives for attacking Armenia's enemies

Among other things, the videos show BRUNSON in front of a whiteboard lecturing as if he is an expert in these topics, and plainly seeking to assist Armenian speakers in the formation and operation of an armed militant terrorist organization. In the videos he discusses appropriate names for revolutionary and terrorist organizations, their internal structures and rules, and how such operations should be funded. He suggests that the acquisition of bombs and other weapons is expensive and difficult, and that lawful funding sources (such as membership dues) would be insufficient to meet the costs of acquiring arms. He then proposes that funding for weapons be obtained by selling narcotics or committing robberies.

Significant portions of the videos are focused on arming terrorist/revolutionary groups. BRUNSON advocates the use of bombs as the weapons of choice. He discusses the acquisition of bombs from illegal sources and the difficulty of transporting them across borders. ...

Using a whiteboard to assist in his lectures, BRUNSON wrote "high explosives," and "HTMD" [sic], "Semtex," and "C2," while discussing each in turn. Semtex and C2 are common plastic explosives.

With regard to "HTMD" [sic], BRUNSON discusses the chemical make-up of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (better known as "HMTD"), and explains how the ingredients are few and readily available. However, he also explains that HMTD is a very volatile substance and is particularly dangerous to work with and to transport. He notes that new chemists or terrorists could lose their fingers and even their lives in making devices with HMTD. He notes at one point that he had started ordering the compounds which made up HMTD, but ultimately concluded that the danger of devices made with HMTD outweighed the ease of making such a device. On the whiteboard, he crosses out "HTMD" [sic], and goes on to talk about more stable explosives. Ultimately, he suggests that hand grenades are the preferable explosives. He describes how a desk can be booby-trapped with a grenade and tripped by someone opening a drawer. Similarly, he describes how a door could be rigged with a grenade and how to place the grenade for maximum injury to the person triggering it. At the end of one of the videos, Brunson states (translated from Armenian), "I cannot say that the pistol does not have any use. It has a big use. But I think that now it is the age of bombs. It is the times of the bombs, because it is very easy to use, and I think that it is already the time for the grenade."

The affidavit continues:

The search of his laptop also showed that BRUNSON conducted Google searches for items that could be used to build a bomb including searches for pipes, pipe plugs, and drills. For instance, several days before he made the video tutorials discussed above, BRUNSON searched for "how does a pipe bomb mailbox work." BRUNSON also searched for and purchased the “Department of the Army Improvised Munitions Handbook.” The Army Improvised Munitions Handbook is a technical manual intended for the U.S. Army Special Forces which describes the manufacture of various types of ordnance from readily available materials, junk piles, common household chemicals and supplies purchased from common retail stores. Among other things, that manual contains instructions on how to make black powder and HMTD.

A separate search of Brunson's phone, done after the FBI obtained a search warrant, found numerous text chats with two other individuals about continuing Armenia's long and violent struggle with neighboring Azerbaijan and that Brunson and one of the two traveled to Armenia in 2022 and "unsuccessfully sought military training," then discussed whether they could pick up bomb-making tips on trips to Northern Ireland, Lebanon or Iraq.

Agents found still more evidence on his laptop and phone, the affidavit states:

A review of BRUNSON's computer and phone also shows that throughout 2022, BRUNSON conducted searches for locations of Turkish and Azerbaijani diplomatic facilities both within the United States and abroad, including Boston and Washington D.C. Among his searches in December 2022 were: "residence of the Ambassador of Azerbaijan" and "residence of the Turkish Ambassador." Intermixed with these diplomatic facilities searches are searches for building access and grappling hooks. BRUNSON also conducted searches related to firearms, including laws related to handguns, sites which sold firearms, and the location of gun ranges. Relatedly, the week before he set off the black powder device in his dormitory room, BRUNSON conducted the following search, "if you shoot someone whos [sic] inside an embassy from outside of the embassy what country do you go to jail in."

After the fire in his dorm room, Brunson dropped out of the University of Chicago and returned East to live with his parents in their Newtonville home. But on Aug. 20, 2023, the affidavit states, Brunson went to Logan with his grandmother and a friend, all booked on a trip to Yerevan, with a connection in Paris.

TSA agents swabbed their luggage and an alarm went off indicating the presence of HMTD, which rarely shows up at US airports on one of Brunson's bags. A second check detected the presence of the chemical on shoes he had packed in one of his friend's bags, the affidavit states. They were allowed to check in, but Customs agents called him in for an interview, during which he "falsely denied ever handling a firearm or explosive" or being in their presence and said he had no idea how the chemical had shown up on his luggage and shoes.

The three were then allowed to board their plane, but three days later, federal and State Police investigators, with yet another search warrant, went through the Brunson home in Newton. In Aram Brunson's bedroom, the affidavit states, agents found "a notebook in which there were not only notes
of the precursor chemicals making up HMTD, but also a detailed formula for making the explosive." A State Police explosives-sniffing dog went through the house and alerted agents in his bedroom, but nowhere else in the house.

Before formally asking a federal judge to issue an arrest warrant, the affidavit concludes:

Upon his departure from the United States in August 2023, Brunson told CBP that he was going to Yerevan to attend the American University of Armenia. Information recently obtained indicates that he remains in Armenia. Efforts have been made recently to encourage Brunson to return to the United States to meet with agents regarding the conduct described herein. Through a representative, Brunson has declined to return.

US Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson signed an arrest warrant on Tuesday, formally charging Brunson with falsifying, concealing and covering up a material fact by trick, scheme or device and making false statements to federal officials. If convicted, he faces a maximum possible sentence of five years in prison.

Innocent, etc.