A Washington man is facing charges of providing large amounts of chemicals used in a car bomb outside a Palm Springs, California, fertility clinic last month, federal authorities said Wednesday.
Daniel Jongyon Park, 32, from Kent, Washington, was arrested in Poland, where he had traveled after the May 17 car bombing outside the American Reproductive Centers clinic in Palm Springs, and was then sent to the U.S., federal prosecutors said.
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WATCH HEREHe was arrested in New York City overnight after the plane he was on arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport, officials said.
Park was charged in a federal complaint with providing and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, told reporters Wednesday.
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Prosecutors allege that Park supplied 270 pounds of ammonium nitrate, an explosive precursor commonly used to construct homemade bombs, to Guy Edward Bartkus, the primary suspect in the bombing. Bartkus, 25, was killed in the May 17 bombing, and four others were injured.
The attack damaged the clinic building and left a 250-yard debris field. No one who worked at the center was hurt, and the clinic said the center’s lab, which houses eggs, embryos and reproductive materials, was not damaged.
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Bartkus lived in Twentynine Palms and was motivated by anti-natalist ideology, pro-mortalism and anti-pro-life ideology, prosecutors said.
Park allegedly shared Bartkus’ extremist beliefs and had posted about similar ideology on internet forums dating back to 2016, Akil Davis, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Wednesday.
Park allegedly shipped 180 pounds of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus, Essayli said.
"Park paid for an additional 90 pounds of ammonium nitrate that was shipped to Bartkus in the days leading up to the Palm Springs attack,” Essayli said.
Davis said that six packages of ammonium nitrate were shipped from Park in Seattle to Bartkus in Twentynine Palms.
A search warrant in Seattle also found that Park had "an explosive recipe that was similar" to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Davis said.
“We believe that Park had knowledge of how to create an ammonium nitrate-fueled bomb,” Davis said. "Social media posts indicate that he was attempting to recruit others of like-minded ideology and discuss these things on internet forums."
Investigators also learned that Park spent two weeks visiting Bartkus in Twentynine Palms from Jan. 25 to Feb. 8, "running experiments in Bartkus’ garage." Park sent the first shipments of ammonium nitrate to Bartkus in January, before his visit.
In that garage, the FBI recovered "large quantities of chemical precursors and laboratory equipment after the bombing," the prosecutor said.
A family member of Bartkus told law enforcement Park had visited Bartkus in July 2024, the complaint against Park said.
The complaint stated Park worked in the shipping department of a company. During a search of Bartkus’ house the day after the attack, the FBI found packages addressed to “Anya Folger” in the detached garage, and one of the packages had a sticker on it that listed Park’s family member’s name and Park’s home address. The return labels listed the company in Washington state that Park worked for.
Four days after the bombing, prosecutors say Park fled the United States for Europe.
Park flew to Warsaw, Poland, via Denmark on May 21, where he was detained on May 30 by Polish authorities. He was deported back to the U.S. and arrested by the FBI and Port Authority police at JFK Airport.
Authorities said the investigation into the bombing is ongoing, noting Bartkus was not on their radar prior. There’s no indication that there were other potential targets, Davis said.
In the attack, Bartkus had asked a family member to use their car for a "protest" that ended up being the suicide car bombing, the federal complaint for Park said.
The complaint said the cellphone Bartkus had set up to record the bombing contained an image of the car used in the bombing, labeled with the phrase “promortalism.”
A review of Bartkus’ phone found Park communicated with him using an encrypted messaging application that was set to auto-delete as of Jan. 22 — days before Park arrived at Bartkus’ home.
Park is expected to make his initial court appearance Wednesday afternoon in Brooklyn federal court. Essayli said the government will seek to detain him without bail, and the Marshal Service will transport him to the Central California District.
Davis called the attack in May “an intentional act of terrorism.”
NBC News' Phil Helsel contributed.
CORRECTION (June 4, 2025, 5:34 p.m. ET): Because of an editing error, a previous version of this article misstated the number of deaths in the attack. The suspect died, and four other people were injured, not killed.
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