Woman charged with mailing explosives
Anger toward men is seen as motive
A former waitress at a Brockton strip club who says she was tired of being mistreated by men allegedly mailed explosive packages to Bridgewater State College, strip clubs, a motorcycle gang, Fox 25, and KISS 108 radio station, according to court documents unsealed yesterday.
Kimberly Lynn Dasilva, 40, of Hull, who hosts sex toy parties and sells adult gift baskets from an Internet site, was arrested Friday night after FBI agents and State Police raided her home and found letters hidden in the ceiling tiles of her bedroom that allegedly linked her to the mailings last September.
Dasilva told the agents that she sent the packages, which contained condoms filled with Drano and gasoline, and that she didn't think they would explode, even though she had learned from the Internet that the items could cause an explosion when combined, according to an FBI affidavit filed in US District Court in Boston. None of the packages, which were sent last September, exploded.
The single mother of two teenagers told the agents she was always being hurt by men and she ''couldn't take it anymore," the affidavit says.
US Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings released her on a $10,000 unsecured bond on Monday and scheduled a hearing in the case for Feb. 23.
When contacted yesterday, Dasilva said, ''At this point I'd rather you speak to my lawyer. I don't want to say anything."
Catherine Byrne, the federal public defender who was appointed to represent Dasilva, declined to comment.
The bizarre plot unfolded Sept. 21 when a suspicious package arrived at Bridgewater State College's admissions office, according to two FBI affidavits filed in court.
David Tillinghast, chief of police at Bridgewater State College, said fluid had leaked from the package and the admissions building was evacuated for several hours while the State Police Bomb Squad and Hazardous Material team was called in to investigate.
A note inside the package said, ''Boom." State Police later determined that the material wasn't toxic. Still, Tillinghast said, the incident caused ''quite a distraction right at the beginning of the school year."
Tillinghast said Dasilva had never been a student or employee at the college and ''so far as we know she doesn't have any connection with the institution at all."
According to the FBI affidavits, five more packages, containing condoms filled with similar material, were found the next day at the Brockton postal annex. They were addressed to Alex's, a strip club in Stoughton; The Foxy Lady in Brockton; The Outlaws motorcycle club in Taunton; Fox 25 in Dedham; and KISS 108 radio station in Revere, to the attention of the popular disc jockey Matt Siegel.
Dasilva, who had previously worked as a waitress at Alex's and The Foxy Lady, is accused of mailing the packages after she wrote a series of letters to the two strip clubs and to the Stoughton police accusing her ex-boyfriend and another waitress of drug dealing and illegal sexual conduct.
She is accused of signing the waitress's name to some of the letters.
The letters also accused Dasilva of prostitution and drug dealing, in what investigators say was an apparent ruse to deflect attention from herself, according to the affidavits.
Dasilva had a seven-month relationship with the boyfriend, who frequented Alex's, but she suspected he was having a relationship with the waitress, though he wasn't, according to the affidavits. While the boyfriend pretended to be a wealthy mobster or mob associate while hanging out at the club, he was actually a longtime truck driver, according to the affidavits.
Frank Caswell, the owner of the Foxy Lady, said he wouldn't comment on the case because of the FBI investigation, but he said no explosive packages were ever received by the club, and the threatening letters ''didn't affect us an iota."
Neither the boyfriend nor the waitress could be reached for comment yesterday. But, according to the FBI affidavits, he told agents he spent a great deal of money helping Dasilva repair her car and furnish her apartment.
But, the affidavits say, he said Dasilva constantly harassed him about his whereabouts and he thought she was paranoid.
He said he broke off their relationship last month after months of trying, according to the affidavits.
Emily Sweeney of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 