Two Men Sentenced for Causing Explosion on Harvard Medical School Campus

BOSTON - Two Massachusetts men were sentenced yesterday in federal court in Boston for conspiring to damage a building on Harvard Medical School's (HMS) campus using a large commercial firework.

Logan David Patterson, 19, of Plymouth, Mass. and Dominick Frank Cardoza, 21, of Bourne, Mass., each were sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley to three years of probation and were ordered to pay restitution of $28,517 to Harvard Medical School. In April 2026, both defendants pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to damage, by means of an explosive. Patterson and Cardoza were arrested and charged in November 2025.

At approximately 2:23 a.m. on Nov. 1, 2025, surveillance cameras located at Huntington Avenue and Longwood Avenue in Boston captured two males - later identified as Patterson and Cardoza - walking toward the HMS campus wearing face coverings and dark clothing. Surveillance video captured the defendants lighting what appeared to be roman candle fireworks at approximately 2:24 a.m.

At approximately 2:33 a.m., the defendants were seen climbing over a chain-link fence into a construction area surrounding the Goldenson Building and, minutes later, climbing scaffolding beside the building to access the roof. At approximately 2:45 a.m., campus police received a fire alarm alert from an explosion on the fourth floor of the Goldenson Building, which houses a research laboratory within HMS's Department of Neurobiology. It was determined that the defendants detonated a large, commercial firework inside a wooden locker in the fourth-floor research laboratory.

Subsequent security footage captured the defendants visiting the fifth floor of the building before exiting via a first-floor emergency exit and fleeing in opposite directions; removing and discarding clothing items they had worn on the HMS campus; and returning to the nearby campus of Wentworth Institute of Technology, which they were visiting for Halloween social activities.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney David M. Holcomb of the National Security Unit prosecuted the case.