...On Sunday, prosecutors announced that they had filed charges against Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, of Chicago, accusing him of falsely making a terrorist threat by claiming that he had homemade explosives — hidden in a hollowed-out “Harry Potter” book at his house — that could blow up a highway overpass. No explosives were found in a search of Mr. Senakiewicz’s home, the prosecutors said.
Separately, Mark Neiweem, 28, who was also believed to be from Chicago, was charged with “solicitation for possession” of explosives or incendiary devices. Prosecutors said he had discussed making a pipe bomb with an associate. He wrote a list, the prosecutors said, of all the items he thought he needed for the bomb.
Lawyers for both men denied the charges, and suggested that the authorities in Chicago were overstating the claims as a warning to the thousands of protesters, some of them linked to the Occupy movement, who have descended on the city for the summit meeting.
Law enforcement officials in Chicago dismissed such assertions, and said they planned to continue an approach that allowed for free speech and dissent, but did not tolerate crimes.
The new arrests were unrelated, the authorities said, to a plot that prosecutors had earlier described involving three men they said had considered attacks against President Obama’s re-election campaign headquarters, the house of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, police stations and financial institutions.
Lawyers for those three men said that they had been entrapped and that a man and a woman who were either informants or undercover law enforcement officials had come up with the plans and provided the materials for explosives.
Lawyers for the two men whose arrests were announced on Sunday said the same man and woman — known as “Mo” and “Gloves” to their clients — were also informants in their clients’ cases...MORE...LINK
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