Morgan Gliedman sounds like a character from Gossip Girl, if it hadn't been canceled. The 27-year-old grew up on Park Avenue as a doctor's daughter, lives in a cushy apartment in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, graduated from Dalton and NYU, and has a Harvard boyfriend — she's the stuff of New York Times wedding announcements. Except that today she's the subject of New York Post pulp for her alleged bomb-making skills. The Post's team of Jamie Schram, Antonio Antenucci, and Matt McNulty broke the news of Gliedman's bust this morning, reporting that authorities had discovered "a cache of weapons and a bombmaking explosive" at the apartment Gliedman shares with 31-year-old Aaron Greene, adding that the two "also had instructions on making bombs, including a stack of papers with a cover sheet titled, The Terrorist Encyclopedia." Did sources really say "baby daddy?" Sources also told the Post that Greene was an Occupy Wall Street activist. 

The case really does have all the makings of a tabloid reporter's dream: a super-privileged mom-to-be, living in one of the cushiest neighborhoods in Manhattan, apparently devising bombs with her OWS boyfriend. What Gliedman and Greene were allegedly up to, of course, would be pretty terrifying no matter what neighborhood what they were doing it in. "Investigators say that substance is Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine (HMTD), which was one of the components in the explosives to be used by Ahmed Ressam, the 'millennium bomber' who planned to bomb LAX on New Year's Eve in 1999," reported Gothamist. Hexawha? Triperohuh? This HMTD is pretty scary stuff, even given the history of false reporting on white powder and alleged terrorists. Here's what an explosion of five grams of HMTD reportedly looks like:

And that Terrorist Encyclopedia reads like pretty serious stuff, too. Here's a snapshot of what that bomb-making manual apparently looks like — a lot of it is geared toward would-be terrorists and how easy it can be for them to become full-fledged bombmakers:

"Greene was arraigned on Sunday afternoon, and is being held without bail until his next hearing on January 4. Gliedman had yet to be arraigned as of Sunday night," Gothamist reports. 

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at aabadsantos at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Alexander Abad-Santos