Accused Mosque Attacker Back in Court

A Dearborn judge ordered Friday that the trial for a California man accused of trying to attack the city's be bound over to Wayne County Circuit Court.

Roger Stockham, 63, will be arraigned on information Feb. 18 at Detroit's Frank Murphy Hall of Justice on felony charges of making a terrorist threat and possessing illegal explosives.

Stockham, a Vietnam veteran with a history of mental illness and a criminal record, was after Dearborn Police were tipped off by a local bar manager that a man had been in his establishment that afternoon, talking about a "big explosion" at a mosque. Shortly after the tip was made, police pulled over Stockham's PT Cruiser in the parking lot of the Islamic Center of America on Ford Road. Inside, they found a grocery bag full of fireworks, plus flammable substances and open intoxicants.

The fireworks, as detailed at the Feb. 11 pre-trial, included almost 100 fireworks, including smoke bombs, bottle rockets, sparklers and M-80s.

Stockham has been in police custody in Dearborn ever since, appearing briefly in court Feb. 4 for his first scheduled pre-trial, which was cut short when he requested new legal counsel because, according to Stockham, his first assigned lawyer Mark Haidar is a Shi'ite Muslim who attends the Islamic Center.

Haidar had originally said that he wished to have a competency exam performed on Stockham–a route that Livonia-based attorney Matthew Evans did not take as the defendant's newly assigned lawyer.

Instead, through cross-examination of four witnesses, Evans sought to prove that evidence did not substantiate the charges against Stockham. However, Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Khalid Najar requested that the case be bound over to county court.

After hearing about two hours of testimony, presiding 19th District Court Judge Mark Somers ordered the latter.

The operations manager of J.S. Fields Pub & Grille, Joe Nahhas, who originally tipped off police about Stockham, was the first witness at the Feb. 11 pre-trial. Nahhas recounted the hour or so Stockham spent in his establishment, which is located just a few blocks away from the Islamic Center.

According to Nahhas, Stockham came to J.S. Fields around 4 p.m. Jan. 24 and made numerous comments that led Nahhas to believe that Stockham was going to blow up a nearby mosque. 

Nahhas called the police, which led to Stockham's arrest.

"I felt that Mr. Stockham was serious and it was a very serious situation," Nahhas said of the conversation that day. "When somebody's telling you ... I'm going to do a big explosion, it means people are going to get killed. This is a serious threat to people, to lives."

Dearborn Police officer Stanley Child, who is the department’s bomb technician and expert on explosives, testified that he believed the fireworks found in Stockham’s car–nearly 100 pieces total, including smoke bombs, bottle rockets and M-80s–were enough to do damage or cause bodily harm.

“In totality, do these Class C explosives pose a possible explosive danger?” Najer asked Child.

“Yes, they can,” Child answered, adding that someone could be hurt by them, especially when combined with accelerants such as gasoline, alcohol and spray paint–all of which were also found in Stockham’s car the day of his arrest.

It was enough testimony to convince Judge Somers to carry the case over to County Circuit Court.

“One could reasonably conclude that (Stockham) intended to commit an act of terrorism,” Somers said, when hearing the information Nahhas said Stockham told him just before Stockham was arrested Jan. 24. “That is, that he intended to commit an act that is a felony under the laws of the state of Michigan, that he knew or had reason to know would be dangerous to human life, and that would be intended to intimidate or coerce the civilian population–specifically, those who attend or are in the community surrounding the site of the intended explosion.”

Stockham is expected to appear in Wayne County Circuit Court at 9 a.m. Feb. 18. He will also be tried on separate charges of open intoxicants at 1 p.m. April 13 in 19th District Court.