Brothers indicted after alleged ghost guns, explosives and 'hit list' found in Queens home
KEW GARDENS, Queens (WABC) -- Two brothers were indicted Monday after prosecutors say police found an arsenal of homemade guns and explosives in a Queens apartment.
Andrew, 39, and Angelo Hatziagelis, 51, are facing 130 charges -- most of them for various types of weapons possession.
Police say they also found a 3D printer capable of making guns as well as a hit list with "cops, judges, politicians, celebrities and banker scum" scrawled on it during their search of the home.
Officials say the volume of homemade weapons found could have caused catastrophic damage.
It all started with a six-month investigation into ghost guns -- or homemade, untraceable 3D printed guns-- which led to the home of the brothers.
Officials say in the home the brothers shared with other family members, there were also homemade IEDs, assault weapons and ammunition, body armor, pyrotechnic smoke bombs and more.
"One wrong mix of chemicals or one wrong wire could have taken that whole building down," said Inspector Courtney Nilan of the NYPD Intelligence Division.
Authorities say they also discovered anarchist-related propaganda.
"A lot of writings of quotes from Charlie Manson, a lot of harm to others, so it was a wide array, so we're still trying to get a handle on exactly what they were trying to do," Nilan said.
The brothers were allegedly making all of it at the home on 36th Avenue, right across from a Con Edison plant.
Neighbors looked out the window on the freezing cold morning of January 17 to see Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) teams and NYPD investigators, who evacuated the building as they searched the second-floor apartment.
Neighbor Shaleen Heffernan says the family downstairs, including the brothers Andrew and Angelo Hatziagelis, seemed bitter, angry and rude.
"It just goes to show you what kind of headspace they were in, and how I couldn't interact or engage with them," she said.
Authorities say their ideology was extreme, anti-government, a combination of far left and far right, and as of now, were not connected to any known networks, but they do represent a type of threat becoming more common.
"The lone actor threat, really complicated, very difficult to qualify, it doesn't fit neatly into a box," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner. "And unfortunately, that is the wave of the future. We're going to be seeing cases that look like a little bit of a lot of different things all at once."
There is no evidence at this time that the men had any plans to use these devices or who specifically was on their list.
Authorities say this community is safer thanks to their indictment and their arrests.
If convicted, the two men could face 25 years in prison.
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