Ties that Bind

June 19 — So far, the scrutiny of dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla’s life has focused on his conversion to Islam and his embrace of the faith’s most radical strains. The portrait that emerges is that of a street punk turned Muslim militant, a lost soul seeking certitude. But there is a fuller context to Padilla’s malevolent streak: his upbringing in a fragmented family, several of whose offspring seem to have been drawn irredeemably toward violence.

ON THE kitchen table in Jesús and María Rosselló’s apartment in Plantation, Fla. last week was a copy of the local paper with a grainy mugshot of Padilla, 31, a.k.a. Abdullah al-Muhajir, their grandson. His look is sullen, slightly sinister. “That face didn’t change,” said Jesús, who is blind in one eye. “It’s the same expression.” Padilla’s grandparents had last seen him when he was about 12 years old and living with his mother in Chicago. Back then, there were already intimations of Padilla’s alienation. “He never spoke to anyone,” his grandfather recalled. “You could speak 3,000 words to him, and he wouldn’t say a single one.”

Padilla never got to know his father, who died shortly after he was born. His mother, Estela Ortega-Lebron—daughter of the Rossellós—had at least four other children with multiple fathers. She now lives just across the street from the Rossellós, but they rarely visit each other. “If I’ve gone twice to her home, that’s a lot,” said Jesús. Her life, he adds, involves “her work, her home, and that’s it.” Ortega-Lebron has refused to speak to the press. By late last week, her front door was covered with signs with such admonishments to the media as “Stop Stop Stop.”

Until recently, Padilla’s youngest brother, Ilan Ojeda, 24, lived with the Rossellós. Now he’s in jail facing charges of attempted first-degree murder. He was arrested on May 1, just one week before Padilla was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. According to court documents, Ojeda had a history of bad blood with a 19-year-old named Jason Morgan. The source of conflict: a girl with whom Ojeda thought Morgan was fooling around. In past confrontations, Morgan had stabbed Ojeda—a crime for which he served time—and Ojeda had tried to attack Morgan with a brick, according to police records. Then on April 23 this year, Ojeda allegedly assaulted Morgan at a Kwik Stop in Sunrise, Fla, stabbing Morgan repeatedly in the neck, back, and arms with what one witness described as a pair of “fishing scissors.” He then fled the scene in a friend’s SUV. Police say that for the next week, Ojeda remained in hiding, until his mother, Ortega-Lebron, advised police that her son was prepared to surrender. He is scheduled to be arraigned on June 25. (Calls seeking comment from his court-appointed attorney weren’t returned.)

InsertArt(1530918) Ojeda isn’t the only Padilla sibling with a lengthy rap sheet. His other brother, Tomas Texidor, 26, who lives in nearby Oakland Park, has tangled repeatedly with authorities and visited the county jails at least eight times, according to court records. He was charged with armed robbery in 1992—the same year Padilla finished doing time in a Broward County jail—and served 13 months in prison. Not long after Texidor was released in 1993, police investigated a domestic disturbance claim between him and his mother, Ortega-Lebron. The police ran a background check on him and found that he was wanted on charges of burglary and criminal mischief. When he was cuffed, he became violent and had to be carried away by his arms and legs, according to police. Two years later, Texidor faced charges for a lewd act on a minor after he allegedly ripped off his 16-year-old girlfriend’s bra, unzipped her pants and fondled her. When officers showed up, police say he again tried to elude arrest, fleeing and leaping into a canal. Subsequent charges against Texidor included aggravated assault and hurling a coffee mug at a vehicle in a domestic dispute, though these charges were dismissed. Contacted by phone at his home, Texidor refused to comment.

The story of one of Padilla’s sisters, Delma Padilla, 29, isn’t much cheerier. According to people she’s known over the years, her rambling life has led her in and out of homes and shelters in the New York City area. Attempts to reach her were unsuccessful, but an acquaintance—who said he knew her boyfriend from jail—reported that until recently, she was staying at a battered women’s shelter in Yonkers. Another woman who knows Delma said she had left the shelter and moved into a new home, but was so destitute that she came begging for an old bed. “Delma just pops up and then disappears,” the woman said.

It all makes for a disturbing portrait of a family that appears to have dealt with adversity by courting more of it. As some of its members have moved from home to home and state to state, they may well have sought fresh starts—only to see them founder. How exactly Jose Padilla fell prey to radical Islam remains a mystery. But judging from his family’s history, it isn’t hard to imagine why.

With Catharine Skipp in Florida and Adam Piore and Suzanne Smalley in New York

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.