BOSTON — A Missouri resident attending college in Boston has been arrested for allegedly firebombing a Tesla dealership using Molotov cocktails in Kansas City, Missouri while home for spring break, federal authorities said Friday.
Owen McIntire, 19, of Kansas City, Missouri, made an initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on Friday to face federal charges, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
UMass Boston on Friday confirmed that McIntire is a student there.
According to the criminal complaint, filed in the Western District of Missouri and unsealed Friday, McIntire is charged with one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device and one count of malicious damage by fire of any property used in interstate commerce.
“Let me be extremely clear to anyone who still wants to firebomb a Tesla property: you will not evade us,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted. You will spend decades behind bars. It is not worth it.”
“Crimes have consequences. The people behind these violent and dangerous attacks on private property will face decades in prison — we will not make deals and we will not negotiate,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement that this is the second arrest this week of a suspect charged with targeting Tesla, adding that the arrest is “more proof that the FBI will not stand for these destructive acts.”
“These actions are dangerous, they are illegal, and we are going to arrest those responsible,” Patel said. “We will work with our partners at the Department of Justice to hold accountable anyone who commits such crimes. I commend our FBI teams in Kansas City and Boston for their work.”
Federal agents and forensic experts recovered and analyzed key evidence—including Molotov cocktails—used “in this deliberate and dangerous arson attack,” Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Acting Director Dan Driscoll said in a statement.
“This wasn’t vandalism — it was a violent criminal act,“ Driscoll said. ”Thanks to the relentless work of ATF special agents, and our close coordination with the FBI and local law enforcement, we now have a suspect in custody. I am committed to ensuring ATF continues to stand on the front lines of public safety. ATF will not tolerate those who incite political violence in our communities.”
According to an affidavit filed in support of the federal criminal complaint, on March 17, at approximately 11:16 p.m., an officer with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department in the vicinity of the Kansas City Tesla Center saw smoke coming from a grey Cybertruck parked in the KC Tesla Center parking lot.
The officer also saw an unbroken suspected incendiary device near the burning Cybertruck.
Police officers recovered the unbroken incendiary device, also known as a Molotov cocktail, federal officials said. The fire spread from the Cybertruck to a second Cybertruck in the lot. The Kansas City Fire Department responded to the scene to extinguish the fire.
The Cybertrucks had sale prices of $105,485 and $107,485, officials said. Additionally, two charging stations were damaged by the fire, each of which is valued at approximately $550.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean Foley and Trey Alford for the Western District of Missouri and Trial Attorney Patrick Cashman of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case.
The FBI Kansas City and Boston Field Offices, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department are investigating.
