Lawyer Who Tried to Set Off Bomb Outside of Chinese Embassy Pleads Guilty

A Florida lawyer pleaded guilty on Friday to placing a bag of explosives near the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and trying to detonate it with a rifle, according to court records. This was not the first time the lawyer, Christopher Rodriguez, had attempted a detonation, prosecutors said. He had previously set off explosives in
Lawyer Who Tried to Set Off Bomb Outside of Chinese Embassy Pleads Guilty

A Florida lawyer pleaded guilty on Friday to placing a bag of explosives near the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., and trying to detonate it with a rifle, according to court records.

This was not the first time the lawyer, Christopher Rodriguez, had attempted a detonation, prosecutors said. He had previously set off explosives in 2022 that caused “significant damage” to a statue of the Communist leaders Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong in San Antonio, Texas, by shooting at canisters of explosives with a rifle, according to court records.

But when Mr. Rodriguez, 45, of Panama City, Fla., employed a similar tactic by shooting at a 15-pound backpack of explosives that he dropped near the fence of the Chinese Embassy on Sept. 25, 2023, he missed, and the explosives did not detonate, according to court records.

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Federal authorities say a Florida lawyer tried to detonate a backpack with explosives outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington in September.Credit…U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Mr. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to damaging property occupied by a foreign government, using explosive materials to cause malicious damage to federal property, and receipt or possession of an unregistered firearm.

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The charges cover his attack on the statue in San Antonio and his attempt to damage the Chinese Embassy.

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