The San Diego Sheriff’s Department has suspended its investigation of the alleged home “bomb factory” of George Djura Jakubec because the huge weapons cache was just too dangerous.
Jakubec pleaded not guilty on Monday to “12 felony counts of possessing destructive devices and 14 counts of possessing ingredients to make destructive devices, along with two bank robbery charges,” according to KGTV news in San Diego.
The Sheriff’s Department says that though “proactive operations on site have been suspended” because of the dangerous conditions, local, state, and federal officials are planning to re-enter the home to remove the chemicals and equipment, which Deputy District Attorney Terri Perez described as the “largest quantity of this type of homemade explosives found in one location in the history of the United States.”
Jakubec, a 54-year-old Escondido, CA resident, was arrested and charged after a gardener was injured after stepping on a supply of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD), an explosive powder, that was allegedly in Jakubec’s backyard.
According to KGTV, investigators from the Sheriff’s Department, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allege that they found at least nine pounds of explosives inside Jakubec’s house that include HMTD, Erythritol tetranitrate (ETN) and Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), the same type of explosive used by shoe bomber Richard Reid in 2001, underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab last Christmas, and the UPS package bombs last month. Officials also found blasting caps and homemade grenades.
Jakubec is an unemployed software technician, and a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Serbia. He pleaded not guilty to the 28 charges in San Diego County Superior Court on Monday, and was ordered by the judge to remain in jail on $5 million bail. He was on probation from a previous burglary charge after pleading guilty to shoplifting from an electronics store, the AP reports.
Authorities decided to halt all activity inside the house, which the Sheriff’s Department described as “extremely cluttered, making movement and observation extremely difficult.” The investigation will continue on December 1 at the earliest.
As for the robbery charges, KGTV reports:
According to the prosecutor, Jakubec robbed banks in San Diego County on June 25 and July 17, and got away with a “substantial amount” of money.She did not provide details, but San Diego police reported a robbery at a Bank of America in the Sorrento Valley on June 25 that was first believed to be the work of the so-called “Geezer Bandit.”
If convicted, Jakubec faces up to 40 years in prison.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.