Fed and State Terrorism Charges Added to 3 Attempted Murder Raps Against Machete Attacker

The machete man who was already facing three counts of attempted murder for his attack on three NYPD officers on New Year’s Eve near Times Square already had state terrorism charges added to his rap sheet and now is also facing federal charges as well.

Trevor Thomas Brickford is facing an aggregate of 80 years in prison on the federal charges, which were added on Jan. 10 by US Attorney for the southern district Damian Williams. Prosecutors said the suspect had made an entry in a diary on Dec. 31, the date of the attack saying “this likely will be my last entry”--suggesting he was prepared to die.

He shouted “Allah Akbar” during the attack and later told prosecutors that he wanted to wage jihad against the US and considered all men in uniform legitimate targets.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg had already said late on Jan. 6 that a grand jury had indicted Brickford on charges of attempted murder in the first degree in furtherance of an act of terrorism.

Brickford was wounded in the shoulder by a police officer, ending his melee and had initially been charged during a video hearing from his Bellevue Hospital bed on Jan. 4.

Brickford remained defiant when questioned by prosecutors several days after the attack. “I wanted to kill an officer in uniform,” Assistant District Attorney Lucy Nicholas said she was told by Brickford several days after his arrest. She said Brickford further stated: “I saw the officer and waited until he was alone. I said, ‘Allauh Akbar.’ I walked up and hit him over the head with a kurki. I charged another officer but dropped the knife and I tried to get the police officers gun but I couldn’t.” Police said they recovered a 14 in machete at the scene that Brickford used in the attack.

In that hearing, ADA Nicholas said that Brickford initially wanted to travel internationally to Afghanistan to help the Taliban but then decided to “come to New York first in order to kill people and carry out jihad.”

In the attack that happened about 10:30 pm at the corner of Eighth Ave. near 52nd St. He initially struck officer, Paul Cozzolino who suffered a fractured skull on his first day on the job after graduating from the police academy. Brickford managed to injure two other officers in the melee before Mike Hanna, a rookie officer stationed at the security check point, shot Brickford.

The 19 year old defendant, who hailed from Wells, Maine, took an Amtrak from Boston to New York a few days before New Year’s Eve. He was already on an FBI watch list after concerned family members said he had become radicalized in the past year and expressed an interest in journeying to Afghanistan to fight with Islamic extremists. While that disclosure put him on an FBI watch list that blocked him from flying, the No Fly list apparently did not stop Brickford from boarding an Amtrak train.

In an eerie coincidence, for a short time before their release from hospitals on Jan. 2, officers Cozzolino and Louis Iorio, an eight year veteran also injured in the attack were in the same hospital as their attempted killer at Bellevue. Officer Hanna--a rookie on the job only since April--was brought to Mount Sinai West after he ended the melee by shooting Brickford in the shoulder.

Mayor Eric Adams in the New Year’s Day press conference said the attack on the three officers was “unprovoked.” He added that the the attacker was believed to be a lone wolf and there was no ongoing danger to the public.

Bragg, in announcing the additional terrorism charges, said: “We are grateful for our NYPD officers who put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, as well as our Joint Terrorism Task Force partners. All eyes are on Times Square on New Year’s Eve and these charges reflect the seriousness of this alleged threat to the safety of our city and our officers.”