Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

‘Sortition’ Believer Busted In Election Day Bomb Plot On National Mall

Federal authorities were holding a New York man who they said planned to blow himself up on Washington’s National Mall on Election Day in November to promote his ideology that requires government leaders to be randomly selected.

Paul Rosenfeld, 56, was charged on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with building multiple explosives, including a 200-pound bomb, in his basement in Tappan, New York.

“Had he been successful, Rosenfeld’s alleged plot could have claimed the lives of innocent bystanders and caused untold destruction,” William Sweeney, assistant director in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement.

Rosenfeld is being held without bail until his arraignment

After he was picked up for questioning on Tuesday, Rosenfeld told an FBI agent that he planned to take a bomb to Washington and blow himself up on Nov. 6, Election Day, on the National Mall, the area between the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial that includes the Washington Monument, according to a complaint.

Rosenfeld told investigators that the purpose of the dramatic suicide he planned was to draw attention to his belief in “sortition,” it said.

The Sortition Foundation, a U.K.-based group that promotes the ideology, defines it on its website as “the use of random selection to populate assemblies or fill political positions.” The organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment or to say whether Rosenfeld is a member.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.