FBI arrests Sayre man in connection with alleged plot to blow up bank

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 40%. (I'm a bot)

A Sayre man has been arrested in connection with what authorities says is a foiled plot to blow up a bank building in Downtown Oklahoma City with a truck filled with fake explosives.

Jerry Drake Varnell, 23, of Sayre, initially wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C., but settled on attempting to detonate a bomb at the BancFirst building at 101 N Broadway in downtown Oklahoma City, according to court documents.

An undercover FBI agent posed as someone who could help Varnell blow up the building, according to a complaint filed Sunday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

Varnell allegedly told an FBI informant that he wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C., with a device similar to the one used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing because he was upset with the government.

The FBI arrested Varnell about 1 a.m. Saturday after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be an explosives-laden van he had parked in an alley next to BancFirst.

The device Varnell believed would blow up the bank building was actually inert, and the public was not in danger, according to the FBI. "There was never a concern that our community's safety or security was at risk during this investigation," Kathryn Peterson, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Oklahoma," said in a statement.

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