Fire-bomb menace Ray Lazier Lengend confessed to cops that he attacked a Queens mosque because “I hate all Muslims and Arabs. They’ve been trying to take over my life for 40 years.”
Lengend calmly gave a step-by-step account of how he hurled Molotov cocktails at the mosque and three other occupied targets during his hate-filled New Year’s Day rampage.
New details about the troubled 40-year-old came out as he was arraigned today at Bellevue Hospital, where he is undergoing psychiatric examination.
Prosecutors said he would face 100 years in jail — 25 for each attack to be served consecutively — if convicted.
In his confession, Lengend described how in the early hours of Sunday he drove his Silver Buick to an Amoco gas station on Hillside Avenue to buy five bottles of prepared frappucino coffee drinks.
“The store gave me three free,” he said.
Lengend said he bought gasoline from another station and poured it into the emptied bottles, turning them into firebombs. Then he drove to his first intended target, a deli on 179th Street and Hillside Avenue, but backed off because “there were too many people.”
He said he drove to the Al-Khoei Benevolent Association, a mosque, but again backed down because “there were too many police there.”
“So I went back to the deli. I got out of the car and screamed and threw the lit bottle at the deli,” he said. He repeated the process at the mosque and two other targets.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Lengend “made statements” about three other targets he intended to attack, two private houses and a Jeep.
He said Lengend hadn’t been charged in regard to them because “we are still doing investigations.”
Lengend didn’t detail his claimed “40 years” of trouble with Muslims. Instead, he said he targeted the mosque because officials there wouldn’t let him use the men’s room on one occasion. He said he attacked the deli a week after he tried to shoplift a Starbucks Frappucino bottle and a small bottle of milk.
In his confession he said he also threw a firebomb at a home because “I had problems with the drug dealer there.”
“So he’s all over the lot” with motives, Kelly said. “And obviously his mental capacity is being examined now.”
Assistant District Attorney David Jeffries said prosecutors would seek four consecutive 25-year terms for Lengend. He said the targets were occupied when Lengend struck and “there was potential for tremendous carnage and harm.”
During his arraignment, Legend sat in a chair at Bellevue, dressed in a burgundy T-shirt and blue jeans. He appeared disgusted but attentive as he answered brief questions from Queens Criminal Court Judge Lenora Gerald with a monotone “yes.”
Gerald ordered him held without bail. His next court date is January 19.