Court filing: Weeks before alleged NYC knife attack, hospital said Bickford not a danger

WELLS, Maine — Three weeks before Trevor Bickford, 19, of Wells, allegedly attacked New York City police officers with a knife on New Year’s Eve, the psychiatric department of a local hospital determined he was not a risk to himself or to others, according to a new court filing.

In a July 14 motion to dismiss part of the case against Bickford, defense attorneys Jennifer Brown and Marisa Cabrera said an ambulance brought Bickford to a local hospital on Dec. 10, at the request of his mother, who believed he was “struggling with severe mental illness.”

“Citing his erratic and irrational behavior, his recent obsession with Islam, and his unregulated moods, Mr. Bickford’s mother believed that he was suffering psychosis and/or mania,” the attorneys wrote. “Despite these concerns, however, the psychiatric department determined that Mr. Bickford was not a risk to himself or others and did not admit him into the hospital for further evaluation.”

The motion did not name the hospital to which Bickford was brought. Brown and Carbrera could not be reached for comment.

“Without a diagnosis or a treatment plan,” the attorneys wrote, Bickford took a train on Dec. 27, from his home in Wells to New York City. He had clothes, food, a kukri knife, and a letter from his mother in his baggage. He spent the next few days in a hotel on the Lower East Side of the city.

As detailed in the complaint and indictment filed in the case, Bickford allegedly went to Times Square on Dec. 31 and, as revelers counted down to 2023, attacked three on-duty officers with the knife. An officer shot Bickford in the shoulder, and Bickford was brought to Bellevue Hospital.

At the hospital, authorities interviewed Bickford and read him his Miranda rights, which he waived, according to Brown and Cabrera. During this time, Bickford allegedly expressed that he intended to target all military-aged men.

After the interview, and after he was treated for his gunshot wound, Bickford was brought to the hospital’s psychiatric unit, documents state. He was soon diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a bipolar type, and was prescribed “various antipsychotics and mood stabilizers,” according to his attorneys.

Brown and Cabrera wrote that Bickford had been suffering from “auditory hallucinations in the form of ‘popping’ sounds that informed his decision-making as well as accompanying physical sensations.”

Bickford remained in the psychiatric ward for more than a month, until the federal government filed charges against him, according to the motion.

“Were it not for the federal charges, Mr. Bickford would have remained admitted at Bellevue’s psychiatric ward,” his attorneys wrote.

On Feb. 15, the government filed a seven-count indictment against Bickford. Those charges are based on Bickford allegedly seeking to wage jihad against the United States by attempting to kill “military-aged men working for the U.S. Government,” according to the motion.

In their motion, Brown and Cabrera asks the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York to determine that part of the indictment against Bickford puts him at risk of “double jeopardy,” of being charged more than once for a single, particular crime.

Specifically, Bickford’s attorneys want the federal government to make a choice: either charge their client with Count One of the indictment or with Counts Two through Four. In Count One, Bickford is accused of attempting to murder “middle-aged men working for the U.S. Government.” In Counts Two through Four, he is charged with attempting to murder three specific police officers, in “furtherance of that scheme.”

Counts Two through Four are “fully subsumed” within the first count, the motion argued.

“Mr. Bickford cannot constitutionally be punished for all four counts,” Brown and Carbrera wrote. “The indictment, therefore, charges at most three acts of attempted murder, and the government must choose on which theory to proceed at trial.”

Online court records indicate that there have not been any new developments in the case since Brown and Carbrera filed their motion on July 14.

Bickford first appeared in court on Jan. 4. During that appearance, Assistant District Attorney Lucy Nicholas told the court that Bickford had initially wanted to travel internationally but instead went to New York “in order to kill people and carry out Jihad.”

According to the DA’s office, Bickford also stated that all government officials were his targets because they cannot be proper Muslims as a result of the U.S. government’s support for Israel.

Bickford did not have a prior criminal record, but authorities were aware of him in the weeks leading up to the alleged attack. A member of Bickford’s family contacted the Wells Police Department in early December to express concerns about him. Wells Police relayed those concerns to the FBI.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Lawyers: Weeks before NYC attack, hospital said Bickford not a danger