Authorities say man made false reports about ex-roommate

By TIM McGLONE
The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK - Roommates often get into squabbles. But Philip Bent took his frustrations to a heightened level, according to the FBI.

Bent is accused of calling authorities to report that his ex-roommate was a member of a violent gang planning to blow up Navy ships.

The FBI says it was all a lie, the result of Bent's own plot to settle a score.

Bent was charged with making false statements to a federal agency, a felony that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Norfolk on Tuesday, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury.

Bent, 27, of Scarsdale, N.Y., was arrested in New York this week and released on $10,000 bond. He could not be located for comment, and his attorney did not return a call seeking comment.

According to a criminal affidavit filed by Salsbury and unsealed Thursday, Bent had been a roommate of Yhoshua Ben Yisrael, a student at Old Dominion University. Yisrael's birth name is Joshua Francis Celestin.

For reasons that have not been made public, the two had a falling-out and Bent moved out of their residence near ODU and back to New York.

In January and February 2005, Norfolk police received three anonymous phone calls from someone claiming that a black supremacist group called the Black Israelites were plotting to sabotage Navy ships in the area.

The caller said Yisrael was the leader of the Black Israelites in Norfolk and that the group meets Saturday mornings at a local library. According to the affidavit, the caller said the group was planning to blow up the Wisconsin battleship in the spring of 2005 to retaliate against whites for their unjust treatment of blacks.

Norfolk police determined that the caller gave a phony name and address, and they did not pursue the case further.

In March of this year, the FBI received similar threatening phone calls and the case was turned over to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Agents contacted Yisrael and he denied being affiliated with the Black Israelites or making any terrorist plots. He took a polygraph test, which showed no deception, according to the affidavit.

Yisrael listened to audio recordings of the calls to the authorities and he identified Bent as the caller, the affidavit says. Scarsdale police interviewed Bent in June, and he confessed in a six-page statement, the court record says.

Black Israelites, or Black Hebrew Israelites, is a religious sect with groups in the United States and in Israel. They believe they are descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel. Members are known to preach white hate messages in New York's Times Square, but the group is not generally known to be violent.

"The investigation did not reveal the presence of the group Black Israelites in the Norfolk area," Phil Mann, an FBI spokesman, said Thursday.