Christian and Tyler Toro, the twin Pelham Parkway brothers who manipulated middle school students to pull apart fireworks so they could create explosives for unknown purposes in 2018 were sentenced to jail in May.
Christian was sentenced to 70 months in prison with an additional three years of supervised release on Wednesday, May 22. Meanwhile Tyler, who allegedly took a more secondary role in the plot was sentenced to only three years in prison on Wednesday, May 29.
While the brothers weren’t charged with terrorism, they did plead guilty to stockpiling explosive materials and manufacturing a destructive device after the FBI and NYPD raided the brothers’ apartment 4C at 2121 Matthews Avenue in February 2018.
Law enforcement recovered a jar of explosive powder and a box of firecrackers from among over 30 pounds of explosive materials like gasoline and Styrofoam. That raid occurred after a bomb-making manual was found downloaded onto Christian’s work computer from Harlem Prep High School, where he was dismissed for alleged sexual misconduct with a 15-year old female student.
Law enforcement also found notecards and cryptic messages that had apparent connections to an online, ‘alternate reality game’ that contained themes and messages of serial killers, the Finder’s Cult, child abuse, torture, cannibalism, worship of the Roman god Saturn, coding, MK-Ultra government mind control and other conspiracy theories, which allegedly served as inspiration for the Toro brothers to create ‘Operation Flash,’ which was a plot to detonate the explosives they had concocted, police say.
