A Rockville teenager’s father helped his son carry bomb-making materials into the bedroom of another Montgomery County student, who prosecutors say was planning to use the explosives to assassinate then-Sen. Barack Obama, court documents said.
Since his July 2008 arrest, Collin McKenzie-Gude, now 20, has been locked up in Montgomery County’s jail. During that time he’s helped orient new inmates, and he has completed a 12-step behavioral therapy program that emphasizes personal responsibility. He has also pleaded guilty to possessing bomb-making materials.
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But according to a letter sent by McKenzie-Gude’s mother, Debra, to U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte, those materials were brought into his bedroom by his friend’s father, Serafim Yevsukov. The friend, Patrick Yevsukov, has also pleaded guilty in the case, but he was prosecuted at the county level after he helped federal authorities build their case against McKenzie-Gude.
It was Patrick Yevsukov who reportedly told authorities McKenzie-Gude was planning to bomb Obama as he ran for president.
According to Debra McKenzie-Gude’s letter, just two months before federal and local authorities raided her son’s bedroom in July 2008, Serafim and Patrick Yevsukov brought a gun locker and other boxes into Collin’s room.
By then, McKenzie-Gude’s parents were aware that the Yevsukovs had shown their son how to build pipe bombs. In May 2008, Patrick Yevsukov’s mother filed a restraining order against his Russian special forces-trained father, and he and the teen moved into a separate house. Serafim Yevsukov then sold off his guns “because he was afraid of the repercussions if the police found them where they had moved,” Debra McKenzie-Gude wrote the judge.
Collin McKenzie-Gude told his parents how “distraught” Patrick Yevsukov was after his father sold his guns.
“I think this unduly influenced [Collin] in letting Patrick and his father bring to our house the chemicals and components for the explosive device.”
The letter was filed as part of McKenzie-Gude’s attorney’s argument that his client receive less than the two-year minimum prison term his plea agreement stipulates. Prosecutors have argued for an eight-year sentence when he’s sentenced Jan. 7.
Serafim Yevsukov has never been charged and is in a coma stemming from a car crash.
