A homeless man alleged to have threatened a deadly gas attack on Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, on Christmas Eve has been indicted on a federal terrorism charge.
A grand jury in Harris County indicted 33-year-old Aaron Suppes earlier this month on one terroristic threat count for his alleged actions against the megachurch.
The indictment states Suppes “threaten[ed] to commit an offense involving violence” against the church’s head of security “with the intent to put a considerable group of the general public in fear of significant bodily injury,” reported Houston Chronicle.
A district court set Suppes’ bail at $15,000 and gave instructions that he couldn’t go near any church property, including Lakewood, the newspaper added.
Suppes was initially detained on the San Jacinto Jail in Harris County, then transferred to the LaSalle Correctional Center in Louisiana.
During a candlelight service at Lakewood attended by around 5,000 people on Dec. 24, Suppes called an FBI tipline and said he would release sarin gas — a particularly toxic chemical weapon — throughout the gathering.
Worship continued uninterrupted as security confirmed that there was no actual threat to the property, because the duffel bags that Suppes had left on the church property were found harmless.
Authorities later tracked down Suppes, who was identified through security camera footage and was still inside the vicinity of the church. They arrested him without incident.
Lt. Willkens with the Houston Police Department later told the press that Suppes had placed one other call on Christmas Eve, making strange claims that implied a mental health issue.
“Called dispatch, called 911 stating that him and his sister were being microwaved from overseas, whatever meaning, so obviously having some mental issues,” stated Willkens, as quoted by WLTX.
“Inside those bags, there was some clothing and a few electronic devices, there was nothing immediately that alarmed the officers or the safety detail. At the tip of the day the threat was fake.”
According to court documents, Suppes had been unemployed and homeless for a minimum of six months leading as much as the Christmas Eve incident. Initially, he falsely identified himself to the court as a pastor from Florida.
The threat got here months after a lady named Genesee Moreno entered Lakewood with a 7-year-old boy and a firearm, then opened fire in a February 2024 attack.
Moreno was killed by off-duty cops while the kid was seriously injured, and a 57-year-old bystander was shot within the leg.
