Cops believe the amateur bomber who detonated a homemade explosive outside former "Sopranos" star Michael Imperioli's Chelsea theater in New York City was sending "a message" to the actor or his family, sources told the New York Post.
Detectives continued to pore over surveillance tapes in search of clues to the identity of the mystery assailant who ignited a 2-by-4 inch pipe bomb — packed with black powder — outside Imperioli's Studio Dante early Tuesday morning.
They were also culling records of actors or writers who may have recently been turned away by the theater company run by Imperioli, who played mob boss
Tony Soprano's homicidal nephew, Christopher Moltisanti, on the hit HBO series.
Imperioli and wife Victoria were shocked when they were awakened by NYPD cops with news of the 1 a.m. blast that sent the rudimentary device hurtling through the windshield of a van parked outside the building.
"It sends a message," a law-enforcement source said. The NYPD believes the bomber has little knowledge of explosives and could have learned how to fashion the pipe bomb off the Internet.
Sources said the motive could have nothing to do with Studio Dante — and could stem from a personal slight that Imperioli is not even aware of — or be the work of a troubled "
Sopranos" fan.
