UC Berkeley Firebombing Suspect Pleads Not Guilty in Federal Court

The person accused of setting fire to a UC Berkeley police car with Molotov cocktails last month pleaded not guilty in federal court on Friday morning.

During the brief court appearance in Oakland, Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu explained the charges to Casey Robert Goonan, 34, before they entered their plea.

A federal grand jury indicted Goonan this week on two counts of arson and one count of possession of an unregistered firearm. If convicted, they face five to 20 years in prison for each of the arson counts, up to 10 years for the firearm count, and a $250,000 penalty for each of the three counts.

An attorney for Goonan said they are not seeking bail at this time.

Goonan was arrested June 17 in connection with four arson attacks — including the firebombing of the UC Berkeley police vehicle — after an investigation led by state arson investigators along with federal agents and university police, according to Cal Fire. They initially faced state charges in Alameda County before federal prosecutors took over the case and pursued charges in only the police vehicle fire.

Defense attorney Jeff Wozniak told KQED on Wednesday that Goonan, whom he described as a Bay Area native with a Ph.D. in African American studies, will fight the charges and said the case had been politicized because of Goonan’s anti-war activism.

“There’s a long history of prosecutors trying to take people’s political beliefs and their music and their art and things that they have said out of context to try to make them guilty by association,” Wozniak said. “Dr. Goonan’s political beliefs in a free Palestine and against the ongoing genocide in Gaza are well established, but those beliefs do not make Dr. Goonan guilty of these allegations.”

Wozniak also called the inclusion of an unregistered firearm charge “a strange charging decision,” noting that it was likely related to the alleged use of an explosive device and that “there’s no gun or what we would typically think of as a firearm involved in these allegations.”

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment, writing it cannot comment on an active case.

Goonan is set to appear in court again on Sept. 17.

KQED’s Sara Hossaini contributed to this report.