Transcript for Mail bombing suspect’s family attorney speaks out
Moments ago I spoke with Ronald Lowy, who is an attorney who currently represents sayoc’s mother and stepsisters. He also once represented the suspect in another bombing incident. Mr. Lowy, thanks for joining us. You’ve represented Cesar sayoc before. What was your personal experience with him like? He was charismatic. He seemed very immature, very young. His thinking process seemed limited. He was not a difficult client. He got himself into difficult problems for what I saw was childish behavior. Whether it was falsifying an identification, I.D. Card and changing the year of his birth, a shoplifting case and even the case where he was charged with threatening fpl saying that he was going to blow it up. Once you look at the facts, they just seemed like someone who was emotionally out of control but not someone who would manifest those actions, who would actually go out and plan to bomb an establishment. Do you believe he was mentally ill or is mentally ill? I believe he’s been mentally ill from the time I met him, but I don’t believe that he had violent tendencies at that moment. In other words, I think that over the 16 years since that particular case, I think his condition has worsened. He became estranged from his family. He wasn’t even political then. As a matter of fact, according to his mom, his sisters, he never voted in an election to their knowledge, and she was unaware he even got a voter’s card finally in 2016. In the time that you’ve known him, is there something you can see that you can point to that may have triggered all of this? In his childhood I think the initial thing that occurred is his father abandoned him. His father was filipino, went back to the Philippines, had no more contact with him, and I think at some early age he began to fantasize that he had a background that he was a Seminole Indian, a native American, and he wanted an identity. He wanted a father figure, and he finally apparently found the father figure in 2016. And where did he find that father figure? Sadly he found it in Donald Trump. And you think his political views are in large part the reason that he carried out these actions? I don’t think there’s any doubt that that occurred. Ronald Lowy, thank you for joining us this morning and thank you for your insight. You’re welcome. I’m not sure about the father figure part of this but it’s definitely clear that in case after case of people committing violence on a grand scale in this country, there are underlying psychological issues. Definitely mental health issues that they saw over time become worse. Such a history too of crimes
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