The Brooklyn ex-con arrested for stashing an arsenal of weapons in his posh apartment confessed to another crime yesterday – blanketing his neighborhood with swastikas last fall, police said.
Ivaylo Ivanov, who is Jewish, according to his lawyer, was charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as hate crimes in a string of anti-Semitic incidents in Brooklyn Heights that date back to September.
He appeared gaunt and shaken as he pleaded not guilty to those charges as well as weapons-possession charges at his arraignment last night in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
Bail was set at $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash.
Ivanov, 37, who lives on Remsen Street with former Columbia University professor and AIDS researcher Dr. Michael Clatts, was arrested Sunday after cops uncovered a bomb-making factory in their apartment.
During an interrogation, Ivanov admitted to spray-painting swastikas at different synagogues and homes just blocks from where he lives, police sources said.
He also admitted to placing fliers with hateful messages on parked vehicles. In another incident, he scrawled “Kill Jews” in a playground, the sources said.
“It is scary,” said Rabbi Aaron Raskin, whose Congregation B’Nai Avraham synagogue down the block was a target, allegedly of Ivanov. “We are thankful to God that the perpetrator was found.”
Ivanov, who has five prior arrests for petit larceny, was nabbed Sunday morning after accidentally shooting himself in the hand, which was heavily bandaged at his court appearance.
Bloody and sporting a bulletproof vest, he approached two cops on Montague Street.
After telling them he was shot by an assailant, Ivanov allegedly admitted he shot himself while cleaning one of his guns. That prompted cops to search his fourth-floor apartment, where they found a cache of high-powered weapons, including pipe bombs and a crossbow.
The pipe bombs were functional, and one was found hidden in a Nerf football, prosecutors said.
Clatts, 50, has been ruled out as having any involvement in either crime, police said.
Ivanov told cops he had the arsenal “for his own personal safety,” police said.
But a police official told The Associated Press that Ivanov wanted to bring the bombs on a fishing trip to detonate them under water and bring fish to the surface.
His lawyer, Adrian Lesher, argued that since Ivanov led cops to the arsenal, “it makes it less likely that he’s a threat.”
After the arraignment, Lesher, a court appointed attorney, said, “I can’t comment on this case, but I can tell that he is Jewish.”
Sunday’s arrest allowed detectives to further investigate Ivanov for the hate crimes, for which he was their prime suspect a few months ago. Police had interviewed him at his apartment, but never found anything besides a paintball gun, which is legal, sources said.
Clatts could not be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by Rich Calder