Mail Bombing Suspect Cesar Sayoc Is Brooklyn-Born Republican

NEW YORK — The man suspected of mailing bombs to high-profile Democrats was born in Brooklyn, is a registered Republican and worked as a road manager for male strip shows.

Cesar Sayoc, 56, was arrested Friday in connection with 13 makeshift bombs that were mailed to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, CNN's Columbus Circle bureau and Robert De Niro's Tribeca office and restaurant, among others, law enforcement officials said.

Sayoc lives in Aventura, Florida but was born in Brooklyn, federal and state court records show. He is a registered Republican voter in that state and an apparent supporter of President Donald Trump — he's seen chanting the president's name at an apparent rally in a video he posted to Twitter in July.

Sayoc described himself as a "promoter" and "booking agent" on a LinkedIn profile that uses his first and middle name, Cesar Altieri. His Twitter account is under the same name.

At one point Sayoc worked as a road manager for "a variety of traveling male revue shows" including Chippendales, the famous male striptease troupe, according to a 2014 Florida court filing. He also worked in strip clubs as an exotic dancer and bouncer, a cousin told NBC News.

"He was a male dancer and he wanted to be a wrestler," the cousin told the network. "He was taking steroids. He was all buffed up....He was built like a rock."

Sayoc faced a bomb-threat charge in Miami-Dade County, Florida in 2002 for which he was given one year of probation, court records show.

Sayoc also has a criminal record in Broward County, Florida that includes guilty or no-contest pleas for battery, grand theft, criminal use of personal identification and possession of an unlawfully issued driver's license or ID, records show. He was accused in one 2004 case of possessing steroids but those charges did not lead to a conviction, records show.

Sayoc appeared to be active on Twitter this week as the devices stoked fear across the nation. He tweeted images Wednesday linking Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for Florida governor, to billionare liberal donor George Soros — who received the first suspicious package at his Hudson Valley home on Monday.

Several of Sayoc's tweets rail against some the targets of the bombs he allegedly sent. In one Oct. 6 post, he blames Gillum for high crime and taxes and calls him a socialist "Backed bye (sic)" Soros and Tom Steyer, the billionaire liberal activist also targeted by a suspicious package.

Other posts contained misspellings of "Hillary" and "Schultz" — as in Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — consistent with the labels on the packages Sayoc allegedly sent, according to a federal criminal complaint. One of Schultz's Florida offices was the return address on each of the packages, the complaint says.

He also repeatedly tweeted an image of a news headline about Soros and David Hogg, the teenage survivor of the February school shooting who became a vocal advocate for gun control. The headline appears to come from The Event Chronicle, a website that publishes articles pushing conspiracy theories.

(Lead image: Cesar Sayoc arrest photo via Broward County Sheriff's Office)