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Surveillance video shows Cesar Sayoc reading newspapers at strip club hours before arrest

Pipe bomb suspect worked as DJ at Ultra Gentleman's Club in West Palm Beach

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A South Florida man accused of sending packages containing explosives to prominent Democrats and other opponents of President Donald Trump spent the early morning hours of the day he was arrested reading newspapers at the West Palm Beach strip club where he worked.

ABC News has obtained surveillance video of Cesar Sayoc at Ultra Gentleman's Club in West Palm Beach, where the 56-year-old filled in as a DJ as recently as Thursday.

The surveillance video shows Sayoc bringing bags into the club late Thursday, leaving and then returning early Friday, just hours before his arrest.

Sayoc can be seen in the footage spreading newspapers across an empty banquet table in front of the stage.

Sources at Ultra Gentlemen's Club told ABC News that employees and patrons there saw Sayoc burning items in a small fire outside his van, parked in the club parking lot, between midnight and 2 a.m. Friday. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Sayoc mailed 13 explosive devices to former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, philanthropist George Soros and actor Robert De Niro.

Wray said each of the 13 IEDs consisted of about 6 inches of PVC pipe, a small clock, a battery, wiring and energetic material. Some of the mailings included photographs of the targeted recipients marked with a red "X."

Sayoc's fingerprint was found on one of the envelopes addressed to Waters, and a DNA sample collected from a piece of the IED inside two of the envelopes matched Sayoc.

Sayoc, who was arrested Friday morning at an Auto Zone in Plantation, is scheduled to appear in federal court Monday. He faces up to 48 years in prison if convicted.


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