Ex-teacher, twin charged in bomb plot texted about Vegas shooter

The ex-teacher and his twin brother accused of making bombs in their Bronx apartment exchanged ominous texts about the Las Vegas mass murderer, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Tyler Toro wrote to his brother Christian that Sin City shooter Stephen Paddock had a police radio when he slaughtered 58 people attending an outdoor concert last October.

“We need to invest in one,” Tyler wrote, according to prosecutors.

Christian was immediately receptive.

“Copy. I see a couple on Amazon,” he replied, prosecutors said.

The exchange was revealed in Manhattan Federal Court before Judge James Cott denied bail to Christian Toro.

The former special education teacher at Harlem Prep High School and his brother were arrested Feb. 15 after investigators uncovered a stunning cache of bomb-making materials in their Pelham Parkway apartment.

The home contained 20 pounds of iron oxide, 5 pounds of aluminum powder, 5 pounds of potassium nitrate and 2 pounds of confectioner's sugar, as well as a jar of explosive powder and metal fragments, authorities said.

Prosecutor Elizabeth Hanft revealed Wednesday that investigators also discovered the key ingredients to making napalm — gasoline and Styrofoam.

The brothers Toro, both 27, had enough explosive materials to “blow off a limb or body part,” Hanft said.

“It’s used to make a bomb,” the prosecutor said of the explosive materials discovered at the home. “It’s not science project material.”

Defense lawyer Amy Gallicchio argued that investigators found no bomb in the apartment.

But the judge was unmoved.

“There's no bomb, but what the government has alleged in the complaint is that there all the fixings” of a bomb, Cott said.

Authorities said the brothers’ apartment also contained a diary referring to a plot called “Operation Code Name Flash” and a purple index card that read, “Under the full moon the small ones will know terror.”

The Toro brothers went so far as to pay some of Christian’s students $50 an hour to break apart fireworks and remove the explosives inside, prosecutors said.

But the suspects’ motives or possible targets remained a mystery.

The scheme unraveled after a 15-year-old student made a bomb threat at Harlem Prep on Dec. 4, authorities said.

The female student was arrested, and Christian Toro abruptly quit his job at the charter school on Jan. 10.

Tyler Toro returned his brother’s school-issued laptop to Harlem Prep two days later.

Scanning the machine, a school technical specialist found a digital copy of a bomb-making book. The tech reported the book, sparking the federal investigation.

Christian Toro was arrested on a third-degree rape charge on Jan. 31 after allegedly having a series of sexual encounters with a 15-year-old girl in his apartment between September 2017 and January, according to sources and a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court.

In their initial court appearance, the brothers were ordered held without bond on bomb-making charges.