Ex-airline employee charged with terrorism

NEW YORK, July 22 (UPI) -- A flight attendant fired for throwing a coffee pot at a co-worker faces charges for threatening violence against his former employer, court records showed.

Rodney Lorenzo, 45, was charged in Brooklyn federal court for threatening to give information to jihadists and for making terrorist threats, the New York Post reported Thursday.

Lorenzo mailed letters in 2008 to top American Airline executives with the word, "Boom!!" written on the envelopes. The envelopes contained pages from an employee handbook with instructions on how to access the cockpit, a prosecutor said.

Lorenzo said in the letters he would forward the information to Islamic groups, hoping they would use it against the airline and its passengers.

After being fired for throwing the coffee pot at the flight attendant, who was not hit, Lorenzo allegedly sent her threats, for which he spent 41 days in a Maryland jail.

He then began his terror campaign aimed at the airline's executives, the newspaper said.

Authorities matched the writing on the letters mailed to the executives with those sent to the flight attendant, and charges were filed, the Post reported.

Lorenzo said he threw the coffee pot because he was upset over a friend's attempted suicide and that he aimed at a door.

Lorenzo was freed on $50,000 bail posted by a man he said was his boyfriend.

"We do take seriously any type of threat to our people and the security of our company and aircraft," airline spokesman Tim Smith said.