Teen Bomb Suspect's Lawyer Tries to Shift Blame

An attorney for the Bethesda teenager arrested after police found bombmaking material and a cache of weapons in his home said yesterday that another student implicated in the case was the one setting off makeshift bombs and that that student's father supervised the explosions.

Appearing in federal court in Greenbelt, Steven D. Kupferberg said his client, Collin McKenzie-Gude, 18, merely watched an explosion detonated by the younger student, who is being treated as a juvenile in the case.

"I make no excuse for my client being present," Kupferberg told Magistrate Judge William Connelly in a hearing on federal charges filed against McKenzie-Gude.

Prosecutors have not filed the equivalent of formal charges against the other student, who is 17, said his attorney, Rene Sandler. "For the defense to attempt to shift any blame to the juvenile has absolutely no merit," Sandler said yesterday.

Along with assault-style weapons, armor-piercing bullets and more than 50 pounds of chemicals found in McKenzie-Gude's home, he had a fake CIA ID, a fake federal contractor ID and a map of Camp David, marked with the president's motorcade route, according to authorities.

Initially, McKenzie-Gude was charged in Montgomery County Circuit Court in connection with the items seized. He was also charged with trying to carjack a 78-year-old man's vehicle in an apparent fit of panic on the day the teen's home was to be searched by investigators.

Federal prosecutors stepped in this month, charging McKenzie-Gude with possession of an unregistered explosive device and production of false identification documents. The state explosives charges were dropped, but the robbery and attempted carjacking charges have not been. McKenzie-Gude remains at the Montgomery County Detention Center on $750,000 bond.

Yesterday's hearing was his attorney's first opportunity to seek release on the federal charges.

A handcuffed McKenzie-Gude was escorted through a side door by a federal marshal. Seeing his parents, sitting in the third row of Courtroom 3B, he smiled and took his seat. As he answered routine questions from the judge about the right to counsel and other legal matters, McKenzie-Gude evinced no anxiety, his responses even and clear. At one point, the marshal guarding him sneezed, and McKenzie-Gude turned and said, "Bless you."

Kupferberg urged Connelly to release McKenzie-Gude, who grew up in Bethesda, graduated in June from St. John's College High School and was due to start at American University this fall. The teen's long ties to the Washington area made it unlikely he would flee the area, Kupferberg said, and Connelly ultimately agreed that McKenzie-Gude was not a flight risk.

But Kupferberg was not successful in his effort to explain away the cache of arms and chemicals found in McKenzie-Gude's home and to cast his client as nothing more than a witness to his friend's actions.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan E. Foreman told the court that forensic evidence recovered from one of the explosions indicated that McKenzie-Gude had handled the tape used to put the device together. McKenzie-Gude was not, Foreman said, "just an innocent bystander."

Foreman did not make any reference to the map of Camp David.

Connelly said that considering the nature of the crimes alleged, the items recovered and the assertions of a cooperating witness, he would not order McKenzie-Gude released pending trial.