Former Home Depot Worker Gets 30 Years For Planting Pipe Bomb In Store

Image courtesy of Maulleigh

If you want more money from your employer, we don’t recommend threatening to blow up multiple stores, let alone actually planting a bomb to show that you mean business. Not only are your odds of success small, it could also result in a 30-year jail sentence.

That’s what a Long Island man is learning after being sentenced to three decades behind bars for using a pipe bomb in his attempt to extort $2 million out of Home Depot.

Back in 2012, the man sent Home Depot an anonymous letter claiming he could plant bombs in the retailer’s stores without being detected. As a demonstration of his stealthy bomb-planting abilities, he actually stowed a pipe bomb in a Huntington, NY.

Police located the device — which the convicted felon claims did not have a trigger — and safely detonated it.

When his demands for $2 million were not met, the man sent a follow-up letter asking for a mere $1 million. What he got instead was convicted of multiple charges.

The man was finally sentenced last Friday, with the federal judge remarking that “This is a frightening type of crime.”

And though the man didn’t succeed in squeezing Home Depot for $2 million, the retailer says it did end up spending around $1.5 million to beef up store security in response to the threats.

Former Home Depot employee gets 30 years for bomb scare [AP]

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