Police Find Weapons in Home of CU Affiliate

A cache of guns and homemade explosives was discovered Sunday in the apartment of an AIDS researcher affiliated with Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Police were sent to investigate researcher Michael Clatts’ Brooklyn Heights apartment after Ivanov Ivaylo, Clatts’ roommate, was admitted to Long Island College Hospital early Sunday morning with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the hand. Upon investigation, police discovered a cache of weapons in the apartment, which Clatts owns.

Neighbor Penny Kaufman said police knocked on her door at 3:20 a.m., mistaking it for Clatts’ and Ivaylo’s. She then accompanied them to the correct apartment.

“One of the police opened the door more and said, ‘Oh, a pipe bomb,’” Kaufman said.

The apartment building, a co-op, was evacuated and residents were moved into the lobby of a neighboring building until 11:30 that morning.

Police and a bomb squad continued the investigation and discovered “an improvised explosive device and other weapons,” according to the police report. The New York Times reported that the arsenal included seven pipe bombs, a rifle, a shotgun, a pistol, two pellet rifles, ammunition, silencers, a bulletproof vest, a machete, and a crossbow and arrows.

Police have not named Clatts as a suspect in their investigation.

A medical anthropologist known for his extensive AIDS research, Clatts works as principal investigator at the National Development and Research Institutes and is a professor at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. He is also listed as an associate professor in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health on both the Mailman School Web site and in his National Development and Research Institute profile.

But Senior Director of Communications Randee Sacks Levine said in a statement that Clatts is not a University employee, nor on the University payroll.

“He does not teach nor is he involved in projects through the Mailman School,” Levine wrote in the statement. “He is among a large number of individuals who are employed elsewhere in the New York metropolitan area but have a voluntary affiliation, without an office or reimbursement, because of the relevant public health research conducted by him and his employer.”

Originally from Bulgaria, Ivaylo has lived with Clatts since 2000.

“Ivo seemed like a party kid, himself. ... kind of a punky kid, very pleasant. We shared a love of animals. He never worked, from what I could tell,” Kaufman said.

Clatts, she said, kept to himself and spent much of his time traveling for work. Currently, he is leading a study on HIV risk in Vietnam.

“I would call him an egghead, I guess,” Kaufman said. “Very intelligent, did AIDS research, kind of a loner as far as I could tell.”

Since his arrest, Ivaylo has also claimed responsibility for spray-painting swastikas on two synagogues, three houses, and two cars in the Brooklyn Heights area this past September. He has been charged with 23 counts of aggravated assault, two of which are being charged as hate crimes.

Clatts could not be reached for comment, and is said to be out of the country.

“They just seemed like two guys who lived upstairs. They had a dog. They went camping a lot,” Kaufman said. “I just considered him [Ivaylo] kind of an odd person. I never thought he was dangerous.”

alix.pianin@columbiaspectator.com