The man arrested for having pipe bombs and firearms in his Brooklyn apartment – as reported HERE by YWN, made statements implicating himself in anti-Semitic vandalism of houses, cars and synagogues, WCBSTV reports.

But the attorney representing the man, Ivan Ivanov, said on Monday that his client is Jewish.

Investigators were trying to determine whether Ivanov planned to target synagogues and other sites he had defaced with the arsenal he had accumulated in his apartment, a ranking police official said.

Ivanov had been suspected of spray painting anti-Semitic graffiti in September on three houses, two cars and on the staircases of two synagogues in his neighborhood, but had not been charged, the official said. After the weapons were discovered, he made statements implicating himself in the graffiti case and was arrested on hate crime charges, the official said.

Ivanov, 37, pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Monday on charges of aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime, as well as criminal possession of a weapon and reporting a false incident, prosecutors said. Bail was set at $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said.

(Source: WCBSTV / CBS2)