An Indiana man arrested on his way to a Los Angeles-area gay pride parade last year after police found three assault rifles and potentially explosive chemicals in his car has pleaded not guilty to weapons charges.

James Wesley Howell was arrested only hours after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida, but police said they found no connection between Howell and the Orlando mass shooting.

He entered his plea on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court to unlawful possession of an assault weapon, importing large firearms magazines, possession of a destructive device and carrying a loaded gun in a car, according to court records.

Howell was arrested June 12 after police officers responded to a call from a member of the public and found him sitting in a white Acura sedan with the firearms, Santa Monica police said last year.b

He also had a five-gallon (19-liter) bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said after his arrest.

Howell told police he was on his way to the LA Pride Festival in West Hollywood, a small municipality bordering Los Angeles. Police said he made no mention of what he planned to do at the parade.

Howell, who faces a sentence of more than nine years in prison if convicted, has been held in jail on $2 million bail since his arrest. He is due back in court on April 27.

A Los Angeles judge earlier this month found sufficient evidence to hold him for trial, according to court records.

Last year, prosecutors in Clark County, Indiana, where Howell lived at the time, charged him with molesting a 12-year old child, Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said by phone.

Indiana authorities brought the charge against Howell one day after he was charged with weapons offences in California. Authorities had been investigating the molestation allegation for about two weeks prior to pressing charges, Mull said.

Howell appeared to have left for California after learning he was under investigation in Indiana, Mull said. Authorities plan to have Howell sent to his home state to face the child molestation charge after the conclusion of his criminal case in California.

A Los Angeles prosecutor could not immediately be reached for further comment on Wednesday. Reuters was not immediately able to identify a legal representative for Howell.

The wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, appeared in court on Tuesday (January 17) accused of committing a crime by assisting her husband ahead of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Noor Salman, 30, was not present for the June 2016 attack. But she faces up to life in prison if convicted of aiding and abetting husband Omar Mateen’s attempt to provide material support to a terrorist organization, federal prosecutors said.

She also is charged with obstructing justice for lying to authorities investigating the massacre, according to prosecutors.

The first person charged by U.S. authorities in connection with the shooting, Salman did not enter a plea at her initial court appearance in Oakland, California. Dressed in a yellow t-shirt and gray sweatpants, she spoke only to acknowledge she understood the proceedings.

Her uncle Al Salman spoke to reporters outside of the court and said, “We believe in her. When she said ‘I’m innocent’ we know she’s innocent.”

Salman was arrested on Monday in California, where she was living with her mother in the San Francisco area, according to her uncle, Al Salman, who denied she played a role in the attack.

Salman said his niece, a U.S. citizen and the daughter of parents who immigrated from the West Bank in 1985, was physically abused by Mateen.

Mateen was killed in a shootout with police after he took hostages during a three-hour standoff in the Pulse nightclub. He wounded dozens more in the shooting, which intensified fears about attacks by Americans inspired by Islamic State.

Noor Salman’s indictment, unsealed on Tuesday, was returned last week by a federal grand jury in the U.S. Middle District of Florida, which includes Orlando.

We are pleased to announce that the Role of Righteous Muslims exhibition boards that Faith Matters put together as part of an educational drive for civil society organisations and schools, has been accepted by a Holocaust Museum in the United States.

The posters depict stories of Muslims who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the educational boards will be placed within the Holocaust Museum in the United States to ensure that people reflect on such stories and on the personal drives that led some Muslims to save the lives of Jews that they had lived, worked with or known.

We are pleased to add to the collection and exhibition of the museum in the United States and we would be happy to donate a further set to any Holocaust educational centre who thinks that they can add value to learning around the Holocaust. It is vital that all communities be exposed to learning about the greatest catastrophe to befit Jewish and other communities in modern history and how communities can be castigated and dehumanised within a short space of time.

In an audio statement broadcast by Albayan Radio, Islamic State claims responsibility for the Orlando nightclub shooting that killed 50 people.

“Allah helped the brother Omar Mateen, one of THE Caliphate soldiers in the U.S, commit a ‘ghazwah’ (incursion) where he managed to go in among a group of crusaders at a nightclub for the followers of Lot in Orlando in Florida. God helped him kill and injure 100 of them. This ‘ghazwah’ (incursion) is the largest in the U.S. in terms of death toll after the incursion of Manhattan 16 years ago. Thank God,” says a member of Islamic State, overlaid with photographs.

The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early Sunday morning with armored cars after a three-hour siege.

Mateen, 29, called emergency services during the shooting and pledged allegiance to the leader of the militant Islamic State group, officials said. His father said on Sunday his son was not radicalized, but indicated Mateen had strong anti-gay feelings. His ex-wife described him as mentally unstable and violent toward her.

(The broadcast by the so-called Islamic State can be heard HERE.)