There was concern that the informer might have played too active a role in helping Mr. Pimentel, said several people who were briefed on the case, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity, either because of the tense relations between the Intelligence Division and the F.B.I. or because the case was continuing.
Some of those officials said the state’s prosecution of Mr. Pimentel was strong enough to most likely gain a conviction, emphasizing that Mr. Pimentel, who was nearing completion of the pipe bombs, had to be arrested…
In the task force, investigators were concerned that the case raised some entrapment questions, two people said. They added that some investigators wondered whether Mr. Pimentel had the even small amount of money or technical know-how necessary to produce a pipe bomb on his own, had he not received help from the informer…
Some in the neighborhood described Mr. Pimentel as a somewhat solitary figure who at times appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. At the Cachet barber shop on 138th Street and Broadway, people said he would sit on a bench there for hours without talking. “He’s like a zombie; he’s in limbo all the time,” Ralphie Sanchez, 59, said.
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