Collar bomb hoax suspect traced using email address on extortion note

The man accused of chaining a fake bomb to a teenager’s neck after breaking into her family home in Australia was tracked down using an email address on the ransom note, court papers reveal.

Paul “Doug” Peters, 50, was arrested on Monday by an FBI Swat team at the home of his ex-wife in a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky, in an operation involving Australian police.

On Tuesday a US judge ordered the Australian father of three be remanded in jail pending an extradition hearing set for 14 October.

Peters, an attorney and an investment banker who owns his own company, once worked for a firm with ties to the victim’s family, according to court documents.

Madeleine Pulver, 18, is the daughter of William Pulver, an Australian internet executive. She was targeted at her family home in a wealthy Sydney suburb on 3 August by a masked man with a baseball bat who locked the “bomb” to her neck.

It took 10 hours for bomb squad officers to remove the device, which was later found to contain no explosives.

An arrest complaint against Peters filed in US federal court in Kentucky indicates the Gmail account on the note attached to the fake bomb was set up from a computer in a Chicago airport on a day when travel documents show the suspect was there.

According to police in Australia the extortion note left on the device warned the family not to call the authorities and directed them to the Gmail account for further instructions. The note was apparently signed “Dirk Struan” – the central character in James Clavell’s 1966 novel Tai-Pan, set in 19th-century Hong Kong.The Gmail account was accessed three times – all on the afternoon that Peters allegedly broke into the teenager’s home, court documents claim.

The arrest complaint also gives vivid details of how terrifying the incident was for the teenager. It says she was studying for her high school exams when she saw the intruder walk into her bedroom.

He was carrying a black aluminium baseball bat and wearing a striped, multicoloured balaclava. The man told her to sit down and no one would get hurt.

The girl sat on her bed and the intruder placed the bat and a backpack next to her. She noticed he was holding a black box, which he forced against her throat and looped a device attached to it, similar to a bike chain, around her neck.

The man locked the box into position around her neck, placed a lanyard and a plastic document sleeve around her neck and started to walk away. When she asked him where he was going, according to the complaint, he responded: “Count to 200 … I’ll be back … if you move I can see you I’ll be right here.” He then left, taking the baseball bat and the backpack.

Bomb technicians, negotiators and detectives rushed to the scene. Neighbouring homes were evacuated, streets were closed and medical and fire crews waited nearby.

After 10 terrifying hours the bomb squad freed Pulver. Shaken but unhurt, she later learned the device was a hoax. Australia’s prime minister said the event resembled “a Hollywood script.”
The teenager described her assailant as being in his 60s, about 165-170 centimetres tall, with a medium build and a slightly protruding stomach and weathered skin. She said his eyes were saggy and wrinkly.

Australian authorities determined that the Gmail account was established on 30 May, from an internet protocol address linked to a Chicago airport.

The Gmail account was accessed three times from nearby locations on the afternoon of 3 August, almost two hours after the hoax device was placed around the teenager’s neck, the complaint said.

The first access took place at 4:09pm from an IP address registered to Kincumber Library. The next two were at 5:25pm and 5:51pm on the same day, from an IP address registered to the Avoca video Store stop in New South Wales.

Peters is an Australian citizen but has lived in the US, including Kentucky. He was educated at The Scots College in Sydney.

Peters was arrested at a house in the normally tranquil La Grange suburb in Kentucky where neighbours were taken aback at the sight of heavily armed FBI agents descending in force.

A neighbour who refused to give his name told the Associated Press that his two daughters were at home doing homework when the FBI team “came in heavy and hard” to the house next door.

“We had guys with machine guns in our back yard,” he said. No shots were fired and no sirens sounded, he said.

He and his wife estimated that Peters had probably spent about six months out of the last two years at the house. They didn’t know him or his ex-wife very well, that there were no problems and they were both congenial. Peters had been involved in various businesses, but the authorities would not elaborate on what they were.

The Pulvers were relieved to hear of the arrest. William Pulver said his daughter was “a bright, happy young woman who for reasons we still don’t understand had her life turned upside down going through this dreadful experience”.

http://liarcatchers.com/process_service.html

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