(Oct. 17, 2026 / JNS)
Steven Carlos Duenas, 51, of the Los Angeles area, allegedly planned to carry out a “mass incident” at a Jewish preschool, and when he was arrested on Oct. 2, federal agents found “combination of parts designed and intended to make a Molotov cocktail,” prosecutors said, the New York Post reported.
Duenas referred to the Houthis, a U.S.-designated terror group, as his “homies” on social media and said he loves them and posted that “not enough synagogues have been burned down,” the Post reported. (JNS sought comment from the FBI.)
The Federal Bureau of Prisons lists a Steven Carlos Duenas, 51, incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. He is described as a white man.
“Duenas appeared in court shortly after his arrest, shackled and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, tears streaming down his face,” the Post reported. “At one point the judge asked whether he wanted to postpone the proceedings until he could regain his composure. Duenas said he was ready to continue.”
“As he left the bail hearing, he mouthed the words ‘I love you’ to his Mom, Maria Duenas, who was sitting in the gallery and was handcuffed alongside her son when the FBI raided the residence they share at 4:30 a.m.,” the Post reported.
“He was sweet, kind, he went to a good school, he was always smiling,” the mom told the Post. “I made sure he dressed well, he attended mass and was an altar boy.”
She told the paper that “losing his job working for L.A. County, a long distance marriage and eventually a divorce led to Duena’s prescription drug addiction.” The Post added that “the mother went on to say that at one point they had Jewish neighbors ‘that weren’t very nice’ and that there was a dispute about a shared fence but Steven ‘never spoke of it. It doesn’t fit.’”