2 Accused of Lighting Firework in Harvard Lab Building

Two Massachusetts men have been charged with allegedly trying to damage a Harvard Medical School neuroscience building with what was likely a firework on Halloween night.

Logan David Patterson, 18, and Dominick Frank Cardoza, 20, are charged with “conspiracy to damage, by means of fire or an explosive, a building owned or possessed by, or leased to, an institution or organization receiving Federal financial assistance, and used in interstate commerce.” It’s unclear whether they have lawyers.

An FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit that security cameras captured two masked men “lighting what appear to be roman candle fireworks at approximately 2:24 a.m.” Saturday. About 12 minutes later, footage showed they had “climbed scaffolding erected beside the Goldenson Building and accessed the building’s roof,” and Harvard police then received a report of a fire alarm in the building around 2:45 a.m., the agent wrote.

Investigators determined something exploded in a wooden locker in a neurobiology lab, the agent wrote, and “although analysis of the explosive is ongoing, an FBI Bomb Technician has inspected the explosive and believes it to be a pyrotechnic device (specifically, a large, commercial firework).” Cameras later caught the suspects unsuccessfully trying to enter a “residential campus building” at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, the agent wrote.

They were identified by “Wentworth students and visitors who came forward to identify the individuals involved,” one of whom said the suspects showed them a video of the explosion and another of whom said the firework was a cherry bomb.

In a statement, two Harvard deans wrote that no one was injured, there was no structural damage and “all labs and equipment remain intact.”