Ex-Navy SEAL's fireworks trial nears conclusion

LAS CRUCES — Prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the trial of Gregory Vandenberg, 49, the former Navy SEAL accused of purchasing fireworks in Hidalgo County with a plan to throw them at law enforcement officers at the No Kings political demonstration in Los Angeles last June.

On June 12, Vandenberg stopped at the Bowlins Continental Divide Trading Post on Interstate 10 east of Lordsburg and purchased a little more than $50 worth of fireworks, including six Black Cat mortar rounds with 60 grams of gunpowder apiece and 72 M-150 Salutes.

Staff from the store testified earlier this week that Vandenberg behaved oddly, asking specifically for fireworks that could be used to harm people and divulging plans to throw them at law enforcement officers at the California demonstration, which took place on June 14.

Thursday was the fourth of a five-day trial before U.S. District Judge Sarah Davenport, with FBI agents giving testimony and prosecutors presenting materials obtained from Vandenberg’s mobile phone and vehicle under search warrants after he was arrested early in the morning on June 13.

Those materials included a T-shirt bearing the emblem of the Al Qaeda flag, as well as digital images on his phone showing emblems consistent with the Taliban — the militant organization that governs Afghanistan — and the Islamic State group, referred to in court by the acronym ISIS. Vandenberg’s phone also held antisemitic images and messages that were shown to the jury.

Defense attorney Dean Clark used cross-examination to underscore that those materials, whether they struck an individual as funny or offensive, were protected speech under the First Amendment; and to suggest they did not establish what Vandenberg’s plans were. He also presented a photo of a “thin blue line” flag, an adaptation of the U.S. flag featuring a blue row and signifying support for law enforcement, found among Vandenberg's personal effects. Vandenberg himself was a police officer in New York City prior to serving 10 years in the U.S. Navy.

Three phone calls Vandenberg placed to friends from the Doña Ana County Detention Center were played in full, during which Vandenberg uses coarse language as he jokes about the case against him, making fun of witnesses and the FBI agent in charge of his case, Lily Saldana.

Of interest in the prosecution’s case was Vandenberg requesting that one of the men he called send him family photographs after Vandenberg told FBI agents he had been on his way to visit friends. Saldana, who testified on Thursday, said searches of email and phone communications did not reveal communications supporting what he said to FBI agents about visiting friends.

The phone recordings also served the defense’s presentation that Vandenberg “cusses like a sailor,” as Clark put it, and has a dark sense of humor. The defense had requested that the phone conversations be played in full, providing a glimpse into Vandenberg’s humor and shifts in language and tone when the wife of a friend joins the call.

Vandenberg's defense also worked to highlight inconsistencies and suggest a dearth of evidence that Vandenberg was headed to Los Angeles, much less to engage in real violence, seeding the elements of reasonable doubt that could persuade the jury to acquit Vandenberg.

Clark also drew Saldana out on inconsistencies in statements presented by staff at Bowlins, including an initial allegation that Vandenberg had explicitly told store clerk Joseph Ramirez that he wanted to “kill” officers. Clark sought to establish through Saldana’s testimony that the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office moved quickly to charge and arrest Vandenberg, apprehending him in his car in Tucson through a dangerous operation in which agents shot through the rear window of his car with nonlethal rounds — only for Ramirez later to clarify that Vandenberg had not used the word “kill” on June 12.

Clark also pushed Saldana on whether the government had diligently sought audio from the store’s security camera system, as the prosecution’s case relies heavily on silent images from store cameras and Ramirez’s account of his conversation with Vandenberg.

Vandenberg faces a decade in prison if the jury convicts him of the charges, including one count of transporting fireworks in interstate commerce to California with the intent to kill, intimidate and injure or kill people, and one count of attempting to transport prohibited fireworks to California.

On Friday, the defense was expected to present its case before the jury of 12 begins its deliberations.