Report: Man suspected of obtaining fake ID with sniper suspect help
November 16, 2002
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A man accused of obtaining fraudulent identification papers was arrested in Connecticut and is being held without bond, the U.S. attorney's office said Saturday. A newspaper report linked the man to sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad.
Delcie Thibault, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said the man had been arrested Friday in Bridgeport and had appeared in federal court late in the day.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that the man - who has used at least five names including John Edwards Jr. and Norman Manroe - was wanted for questioning by investigators tracking the movements of sniper suspects Muhammad and John Lee Malvo.
Muhammad lived on the Caribbean island of Antigua in 2000 and 2001. John Fuller, the head of an Antiguan task force assisting in the investigation, said last week that Edwards, a Jamaican, allegedly used documents supplied by Muhammad to obtain an Antiguan passport.
Muhammad, 41, and Malvo, 17, were arrested last month and charged with murder for a monthslong shooting spree that left 14 people dead and five others wounded in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, the District of Columbia, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.
Both could face the death penalty if convicted.
Thibault said court documents do not mention a link between Muhammad and Edwards, and declined to comment on whether there is a connection between the two.
Edwards was charged with making a false statement to obtain a passport. He has been denied bail until trial. It's unclear when he will be arraigned, Thibault said Saturday.
A State Department diplomatic security officer and an FBI spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the case.
Officials at the Bridgeport Correctional Center, which also holds some federal prisoners, said they had a Norman Manroe on the jail roster, but had no other information. A spokesman for the state Department of Correction said he didn't know whether the Bridgeport inmate was the person identified in the newspaper story.
Fuller said Edwards also allegedly applied for a U.S. passport in Barbados using a U.S. birth certificate that was allegedly supplied by Muhammad with the name Frederick Jones. The application was rejected.
The Post said court papers show Edwards was arrested in Massachusetts on a drug charge and turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service after officials determined he was not a U.S. citizen.
Earlier this month investigators in New York arrested Peter John Gianquinto Jr., 53, whom Antiguan officials have also linked to Muhammad.
The Post also reported that the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service detained a man last week in New York on charges of fraudulently obtaining a U.S. visa.
The newspaper said the man, identified as John Ferris, drew investigators' attention because he was on the same flight as Muhammad and Malvo when they left Antigua on May 31, 2001.
Investigators also became curious about Ferris because his last name is the same as that of a woman whom Muhammad falsely claimed was his mother when he obtained an Antiguan passport.