Police raid suspect’s home, pawnshops linked to kosher market attacker

NEWARK, New Jersey (AP) — FBI agents were at a second pawnshop Monday that is connected to a man whose number was found in the pocket of one of the perpetrators of last week’s fatal attack on a Jewish market in New Jersey.

Federal agents searched the home of Ahmed A-Hady and a pawnshop in Keyport, New Jersey, connected to him last week. Those searches turned up weapons, including three AR-15-style assault rifles, three handguns, and one shotgun, as well as more than 400 rounds of ammunition.

A-Hady has not been charged with providing any of the weapons used in Tuesday’s bloody rampage in Jersey City that left four people and the two attackers dead. But he has been charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon and is scheduled to appear in US District Court in Newark on Monday afternoon.

Records indicated that A-Hady bought two handguns in 2007 before being convicted of a felony in 2012 that made him ineligible to own firearms. Authorities say he acknowledged still owning the handguns. His father, Alaa Hady, told The Associated Press on Monday that at least some of the weapons recovered by federal agents were his, not his son’s.

The father also said he was the owner of the Keyport pawnshop, while his son had one in South Amboy, about 10 miles (15 kilometers) away.

Police officers look at bullet holes in the windows of a school across the street from the JC Kosher Supermarket on December 11, 2019 in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Rick Loomis/Getty Images/AFP)

On Monday, agents in FBI flak jackets were at a pawnshop in South Amboy. It could not immediately be determined if it was the shop that Hady said was his son’s.

The US attorney’s office has used the spelling A-Hady for the last name of the man charged, while his father spelled his last name as Hady.

A-Hady’s number was found in the pants pocket of David Anderson, one of the two Jersey City attackers. Anderson and Francine Graham killed Jersey City Police Det. Joseph Seals in a cemetery last week before storming the JC Kosher Supermarket, leaving three people dead inside before they were fatally shot in a standoff with police.

Officials said the killers were motivated by hatred of Jews and law enforcement. The attack is being investigated as domestic terrorism.

Anderson and Graham are also prime suspects in the slaying of a livery driver found dead in a car trunk in nearby Bayonne the previous weekend, authorities have said.

Ahmed A-Hady – the Man whose phone number was found on Jersey City shooters has been arrested. https://t.co/P8aEJCGyx2 via @CBSNews

— Jewish Indy (@JewishIndy) December 16, 2019

Anderson and Graham were armed with multiple weapons including an AR-15-style rifle and a shotgun, and a pipe bomb was also found in the stolen U-Haul van they drove to the market. Two of the weapons used by Anderson and Graham were bought by Graham in Ohio last year, police have said. It is not known where they got the three other guns.

CBS2NY reported that A-Hady’s brother said the family had never heard of the suspects and the pawnshop did not sell firearms.