D.A. Employee Threatened to Blow Up Queens Migrant Shelter, Police Say

The employee, Derek Klever, told a witness that he was fed up with migrants partying at the shelter across from his apartment, according to court documents. “This is a war,” he said.

An employee at the Queens district attorney’s office was accused on Thursday of threatening to detonate a device at a New York City migrant shelter after the police found explosive materials in his home, according to a complaint filed in Queens criminal court.

The employee, Derek Klever, told an unnamed witness last week that he was constructing an explosive device — by combining incendiary powders from fireworks with nail gun cartridges — to set off at a migrant shelter next to his apartment in Elmhurst, Queens, according to the complaint.

That person told the police that Mr. Klever said he was fed up with migrants “having a party at 8 in the morning” at the shelter, according to the complaint.

“This is a war,” Mr. Klever is said to have told the witness. “I wish I had a big enough one to blow them back to Venezuela.”

The police searched Mr. Klever’s home shortly after arresting him at his workplace on Tuesday. They found a BB gun in a child’s bedroom, as well as various fireworks, green wire and a vase filled with long nail cartridges and “a black substance,” both wrapped in tin foil, according to the complaint.

Mr. Klever was arraigned on Thursday and pleaded not guilty on charges of making a terroristic threat and criminal possession of a weapon, among other charges.

A spokesman for the Queens district attorney’s office, Brendan Brosh, confirmed that one of its employees had been “arrested and terminated,” adding that the investigation was “ongoing.”

Dennis Lemke, a lawyer for Mr. Klever, declined to comment on the charges, but said that his client remained in jail and planned to make bail over the weekend.

Mr. Klever, a paralegal, worked as a trial preparation assistant at the district attorney’s office, according to his LinkedIn profile. He graduated from Queens College in 2020, according to his profile, and in February 2023 joined the prosecutor’s office in Queens, where he had a $46,000 salary, according to The City Record.

The target of Mr. Klever’s seemingly amateurish plan was the Kamway Lodge, a 12-room redbrick hostel that had been converted into a temporary migrant shelter.

Mr. Klever told the witness that he had been tinkering with the fireworks and that he was thinking of renting a drone he could use to drop an explosive, according to the complaint. Mr. Klever said that his intention was to maim, not kill, and that the migrants “should live in terror and fear every day,” the complaint said.

New York City currently houses over 60,000 migrants in more than 200 shelters across the city, including hotels, warehouses and once-empty office buildings. More than 210,000 asylum seekers, from as far as away Venezuela, China and Senegal, have sought shelter in the city since 2022 as crossings at the southern border have reached record highs.

Many were drawn to New York City because of its unique legal obligation to provide a bed to anyone who asks for one, a requirement known as “right to shelter.” City officials have projected that the cost of housing, feeding and providing services to migrants will cost more than $10 billion over three years.

The two-year-old migrant crisis has tested the openness of residents in a liberal bastion that has long prided itself on its reputation as a welcoming city. Migrant shelters have drawn protests and pushback in some neighborhoods where they have opened, and highly publicized crimes committed by migrants have fueled anti-immigrant rhetoric and raised fears among some New Yorkers.

In July, a Parks Department employee was accused of fatally shooting a 30-year-old Venezuelan migrant, Arturo Jose Rodriguez-Marcano, at a Brooklyn playground where migrants who were homeless had spent the night. The city employee, Elijah Mitchell, was charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime. Prosecutors said Mr. Mitchell had angrily confronted the migrants sleeping in the park before killing Mr. Rodriguez-Marcano.

Shayla Colon and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.

Around the New York Region

A look at life, culture, politics and more in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

• Gaming Citi Bikes: The bike-sharing program rewards users who help redistribute bikes around New York City. A few riders have figured out how to turn that into profit, making up to $6,000 a month.
• The Migrant Crisis: It’s been a year since Mayor Eric Adams made his ominous prediction that the migrant crisis would “destroy New York City.” It didn’t, but challenges remain.
• Saving N.Y.C.’s Diners: Across the city, younger chefs are tweaking the menus, prices and interiors of decades-old diners on the brink, but not too much else.
• Street Wars: Permeable pavement looks like and feels like a regular street. But beneath the surface, six layers are working to keep rainwater from overwhelming New York City neighborhoods.
• Sunday Routine: The actress Gina Torres, of “Suits” and “9-1-1: Lonestar,” starts with a low-key workout, takes a dance break and ends the day with one of her favorite murder-filled TV shows.