Tsarnaev brothers appeared to have scant finances
By Todd Wallack and Beth Healy
April 24, 2013
The older brother liked to look like a man of means, once posing for a photo
in front of a gleaming Mercedes sporting a long wool scarf and white leather
slip-on shoes. But Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was a stay-at-home dad, relying on
his wife to work long hours as a home health care aide to support the
family.
And the car? Tsarnaev most recently owned a 15-year-old Honda.
Tsarnaev's younger brother never seemed strapped for cash, according to
people who knew him at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where he
was a sophomore. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a scholarship student who earned
spending money by selling marijuana, say three people who bought drugs from
the 19-year-old.
Even the explosives they allegedly set off at the Boston Marathon a week ago
turned out to be crude and inexpensive - likely built from ordinary kitchen
pressure cookers, nails, and other household items from instructions
available online. Each bomb may have cost less than $100.
If the brothers had outside financial or technical support for their deadly
attack on the Marathon, it certainly isn't reflected in their lifestyle or
their weapons. The picture that is emerging is more like terrorism on a
budget, consistent with reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators
from his hospital bed that he and his brother acted alone.
'I don't think he ever brought any friends in here that spent more than
$500.'
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"There is no barrier here to two men doing this on their own," said Brian
Michael Jenkins, a Rand Corp. adviser who focuses on terrorism. "You could
easily do this for under $100 per bomb. . . . This is an investment even
someone with modest means can make."
Such details are important because speculation has swirled for days about
whether the brothers had any connection to foreign governments, outside
terrorism groups, or underworld organizations such as the Russian mafia, who
may be planning additional attacks on US soil. The older brother's travel to
Russia fueled speculation.
But the Tsarnaevs' terrorism operation, while deadly, bears little
resemblance to the sophisticated 9/11 plot during which the hijackers spent
an estimated $500,000 - mostly from Al Qaeda - for flight training, living
expenses, and travel, including tickets for the planes they hijacked.
Almost as soon as Tamerlan Tsarnaev was identified and killed in a dramatic
shootout with law enforcement early Friday morning, reporters and amateur
gumshoes unearthed an online photo gallery that appeared to capture a lavish
lifestyle of a talented boxer living the American dream, making some wonder
if he also had outside support.
But his everyday life turned out to be much more ordinary, someone who was
just trying to scrape by.
The older brother lived with his wife and 3-year-old daughter in an
apartment near Inman Square, a working-class neighborhood in Cambridge that
has gradually become more gentrified over the years. A neighbor who asked
not to be identified said the brothers paid "below market" rent for the
apartment where their entire family had lived previously.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev reportedly worked odd jobs and short-term positions, such
as delivering pizzas, to help pay the bills. He reported to police that he
was "unemployed" during a 2009 domestic violence arrest and listed himself
as a "driver" on his marriage certificate when he got married a year later.
Instead, he relied mainly on his wife, Katherine Russell, to be the primary
breadwinner. Her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, told reporters that she often worked
70 to 80 hours a week, seven days a week, as a home health care aide, a
sometimes grueling job that typically pays around $12.50 per hour in the
Boston area, according to Department of Labor data.
"She has been living in Cambridge, raising her child, and working long
hours, caring for people in their homes who are unable to care for
themselves,'' DeLuca and his partners said in a statement Tuesday, adding
that Russell and her family were still struggling to come to terms with her
husband's death and the accusations that he was involved in the bombing.
The older Tsarnaev did excel as an amateur boxer. He competed in the
national Golden Gloves tournament in Salt Lake City in 2009 and was New
England's Golden Gloves heavyweight champ in 2010. But he made little, if
any, money from his efforts.
"There is no money," in amateur boxing, said John Allan, owner of Wai Kru
Mixed Martial Arts in Allston, who saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev compete and
considered him the best boxer in the city, in an interview last week.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev owned a black Mercedes C230 at one time - but it was a
1998 model likely worth only a few thousand dollars today. When he died last
week, he only owned one car - a 1999 Honda CRV, according to motor vehicle
records.
Indeed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family had so little income that they even
qualified for state assistance until 2012, state health and human services
spokesman Alec Loftus said Tuesday. Both brothers also received benefits
through their parents when they were younger. The welfare benefits were
first reported by the Boston Herald.
His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, always seemed to have money for food
and other everyday expenses. "He lived a good life, I guess," said Jason
Rowe, his former roommate at UMass Dartmouth.
But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't live a particularly lavish lifestyle. He drove
his father's green 1999 Honda Civic. And while UMass Dartmouth costs more
than $22,000 a year, including room and board, many students receive
significant student loans and other financial aid. UMass declined to give
details on Tsarnaev's aid package, but he received at least one scholarship
- $2,500 from the city of Cambridge, where he went to high school.
Several fellow students reported he earned at least some cash selling
marijuana - at least the portion he didn't smoke himself. "There was a
permanent stench of marijuana in his room," said one person who asked not to
be named.
He also had a mysterious side enterprise involving repairing damaged cars.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev regularly brought cars to Junior's Auto Body, a well-worn
shop on the Cambridge-Somerville line, on a road lined with scrap metal and
auto repair garages.
Why a 19-year-old college student was bringing cars in for work for people
he said were friends remains unclear, though his father had worked as a
garage mechanic before he returned to the family's native Russia. The shop
owner, Gilberto Junior, said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sometimes accompanied friends
to the shop, riding in the passenger's seat. Often, the friends told Junior
they were students at MIT, he said.
The repair jobs were small, and it's not clear whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
received a commission.
"I don't think he ever brought any friends in here that spent more than
$500,'' Junior said. He was never under the impression that Tsarnaev had
much money.
Junior never asked Tsarnaev how he got by; there were only three topics they
talked about: "Soccer, cars, and Brazilian girls."
But Junior said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did have a dream: He wanted to buy a new
car once he graduated from school.
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