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LOS ANGELES (CN) — A Los Angeles man on Monday pleaded not guilty to charges he threw two Molotov cocktails at security officers inside the federal building in downtown LA.
Jose Francisco Jovel, 54, entered a not guilty plea to all five charges at his arraignment hearing before a U.S. magistrate judge. He’s provisionally scheduled to go on trial Feb. 10 before a federal judge.
Jovel, represented by a federal public defender, appeared agitated and was difficult to understand as he responded to some of the judge’s inquiries during the brief hearing. Unusually, he asked for the grand jury indictment to be read out loud to him before he responded to the charges.
He was arrested on Dec. 1 and is accused of throwing two Molotov cocktails through the sliding doors of the building when they were opened — one through the employee entrance and one through the public entrance where people were waiting to pass through security. Neither device exploded, and he only appeared to have tried to lit one of them with a lighter.
When Federal Protective Service officers apprehended him, Jovel reportedly told them “this is a terrorist attack anyways … you’re separating families …," according to an FBI agent in an affadavit filed in support of the charges. He also reportedly yelled for people to “start shooting these,” referring to the officers, and “I attacked your bitch ass and you didn’t do nothing.”
He is accused of also having five other Molotov cocktails, filled with a mixture of ethanol and hand sanitizer, in shopping bags that hung from the handlebar of his bicycle.
Before he arrived at the federal building around 8 a.m. in the morning, Jovel had set fire to his apartment because, he told federal officers, he was frustrated with the building’s management.
According to the FBI agent in the affidavit, Jovel has a significant criminal history that includes convictions of grand theft, vehicle theft, and first degree robbery. The robbery conviction resulted in a nine-year prison sentence.
If he’s found guilty of attempted malicious damage to a federal building, Jovel faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, the U.S. attorney’s office in LA said earlier this month in announcing the charges.
“This case exemplifies how misleading and hateful rhetoric against federal law enforcement can and does result in violence,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said at the time. “Irresponsible rhetoric by politicians and activists have real-world consequences. It must stop.”
The federal building in downtown LA was a flash point of protests that erupted in June in response to the unprecedented immigration crackdown the Trump administration unleashed in Southern California. President Donald Trump deployed the California National Guard to protect the building.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has used a basement of the federal building to hold detainees rounded up by roving patrols of masked agents in unmarked vehicles that target Latino-looking workers at Home Depot parking lots, car washes, towing yards and bus stops.
A federal judge last month ordered ICE to to provide lawyers with better access to the detainees it holds in the building.
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