NEW YORK — The man accused of attacking three police officers with a machete steps away from New Year’s Eve revelers in Times Square is facing federal charges on top of state criminal charges, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Trevor Bickford, a self-declared jihadist, was indicted last week in Manhattan Supreme Court on multiple counts of terrorism and attempted murder for the ambush on Eighth Avenue and W. 52nd Street on Dec. 31.
Bickford is in New York state custody and is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on an unspecified date, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a Tuesday statement.
A source familiar with the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution said the federal and state cases against Bickford will run parallel and the offices are in close coordination.
Bickford, a Maine native, attacked officers who were part of a joint federal-state law enforcement assigned to the Times Square New Year’s Eve festivities, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
The attacker traveled to the city intent on injuring the officers, one of whom was a rookie working his first shift since graduating from the police academy, police say.
When he arrived at the checkpoint where Times Square spectators could enter into the barricades, he shouted “Allahu Akbar” — Arabic for “God is great” — prosecutors said.
Rookie officer Paul Cozzolino suffered a fractured skull while officer Louis Iorio, an eight-year NYPD veteran, suffered a less serious gash to his head. Both were treated at Bellevue Hospital and released the same weekend they were attacked.
Bickford was shot in the shoulder by officer Michael Hanna, who joined the NYPD in April.
Bockford, 19, began studying radical Islamic ideology in summer 2022, eventually “devoting himself to violent Islamic extremism and waging jihad,” prosecutors said.
In November, he expressed interest in traveling to Afghanistan to support the Taliban and fight against governments that he believed were anti-Muslim, including the United States.
Bickford told a family member he wanted to become a suicide bomber when he made it to the Middle East but decided to stay in the States instead and “wage jihad against the U.S. Government,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Bickford considers the attack unsuccessful as both he and the officers survived the attack.
He’s charged with four federal counts of attempted murder of officers and employees of the U.S. government and persons assisting them. If convicted, he could face up to 80 years in prison.
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(New York Daily News writer Molly Crane-Newman contributed to this report.)
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