A Queens, New York man, said to be Guyanese, confessed yesterday to a New Year’s Day firebombing spree — claiming a personal vendetta drove him to throwing the Molotov cocktails, police said, according to today’s New York Daily News.
It said Ray Lazier Lengend, 40, appeared dazed and mumbled incoherently as he was led out of the 103rd Precinct stationhouse and into an ambulance last night.
Lengend, an unemployed truck driver, was charged with five counts of criminal possession of a weapon and five counts of arson, one considered a hate crime, police said.
He made “broad anti-Muslim statements” to detectives and said each of the five attacks in Queens and Elmont, L.I., flowed from ongoing disputes, the newspaper said. He tried to burn a Jamaica mosque because he wasn’t allowed to use its bathroom.
“The suspect made statements incriminating himself in each of the five firebombings, citing a personal grievance or dispute in each instance,” said Paul Browne, top spokesman for the NYPD, according to the Daily News.
Investigators were also trying to link him to at least three other attacks reported after the suspect’s arrest, Browne said.
Lengend was handcuffed about 8 a.m. yesterday, after Detectives Richard Johnson and Charles LoPresti of the 103rd Precinct saw him get into a stolen car linked to the first attack, on a Hillside Ave., Queens, bodega, the Daily News said.
Lengend was caught by workers at the bodega on Dec. 27 allegedly trying to steal a carton of milk and a Starbucks Frappuccino. (See other story below)
