He’s no arch enemy, lawyers for a notorious, weapons-loving trust fund junkie said today after he pleaded not guilty to possessing explosives powder, two shotguns and knives in his Greenwich Village apartment.
“There were no plans ever to blow up the Washington Square Arch,” defense lawyer Isabelle Kirshner said after this morning’s arraignment of Aaron Greene, 31.
Two weeks ago, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced at a press conference that Greene told pals he planned to blow up the iconic marble structure, and would walk around Washington Square Park sprinkling explosives powder on the sidewalk and setting it off by hitting the powder with a rock.
Today, defense lawyers insisted the two are just heroin addicts, not terrorists.
“They are truly pathetic junkies, from nice families,” Kirshner said of Greene, son of a prominent architectural restorer, and Morgan Gliedman, his Dalton-grad co-defendant and live-in baby mama.
“They are an illustration of the scourge of addiction,” the lawyer said.
So-called “Bomb Mom” Gliedman, 27, is the daughter of Dr. Paul Gliedman, head of radiation oncology at Beth Israel Booklyn, and did not appear at her baby-daddy’s side before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon today. She is being held in a locked rehab ward in the city as a condition of her bail.
She gave birth to her daughter by Greene — “Melody Sunshine,” described by sources as not drug addicted despite her mother’s drug issues — a day after being arrested with Greene on Dec. 29 in their posh West Ninth Street apartment.
There cops seized two shot guns, 60 shotgun shells, knives, and seven grams of a highly explosive white powder called HMTD. According to police statements released this morning, Greene insisted to cops that “he made the HMTD found in his apartment.”
“He indicated he was aware of the weapons in the apartment and they belonged to him, in particular a shotgun,” according to the police statements. “He stated he had possessed more guns but had given them away to a friend in law enforcement.”
A week later, cops, following that lead, raided the Rockland County home of Greene’s corrections officer pal, Daniel Whittaker, 33, where they recovered 21 guns, including an Uzi 9mm submachine gun. They also found two stun guns, brass knuckles and a switch blade.
The ownership of those guns remains under investigation. For now, Greene and the Park Avenue-raised Gliedman have been indicted on first degree weapons possession for the powder, and additional lesser weapons charges for the shotguns and knives.
Gliedman’s police statements were also released this morning.
“My name is Morgan Gliedman,” the statements record her telling cops during the 6 a.m. arrest at 8 West 9th St.
“I live here with my boyfriend Aaron Greene. He’s home. Come in. I know about the case,” she told cops, referring to unrelated grand larceny charges concerning her alleged theft of electronics and a wallet from an acquaintance she’d met at a bar and gone home with overnight in February.
“I was told the situation was taken care of,” she told cops of the alleged larceny, according to her statements.
Three hours later, at the Midtown South precinct, “Defendant stated she had not realized the extent of defendant Greene’s collection of weapon and ammunition,” the statements say.
“After the Newtown shooting, defendant Greene told her they ought to go buy more guns before the law is changed,” she told cops.
As for the alleged larceny, “Defendant Greene made her go into the bar, and go home with ‘that guy.’ She took the laptop to pay the drug dealers in Washington Heights.”