Posted on 05/16/2008 6:33:56 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
An FBI probe into the May 4 bombing of a federal courthouse led to a woman being charged Friday with using a false identification to try to obtain explosives.
Authorities said, however, that no one has been charged with the bombing, which damaged the courthouse lobby and sent more than 100 nails and other shrapnel flying as far as two blocks. No one was injured.
Rachelle Lynette Carlock, 31, was arraigned in federal court in El Centro on an eight-count complaint charging use of false identification to obtain explosive materials, being a felon in possession of explosive materials and fraud.
Carlock was arrested Thursday afternoon by the San Diego FBI SWAT team.
FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth and Debra Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, declined to elaborate on how the bombing investigation led to the arrest. Neither could immediately provide the name of a defense attorney.
"The courthouse bombing investigation is ongoing. At this time it would not be appropriate to go into details beyond what is set forward in the complaint," Foxworth said.
The complaint alleges that Carlock used someone else's California driver's license on April 7 and May 1 to buy a smokeless powder called Hodgdon Triple Se7en from a licensed explosives dealer. The powder was shipped to San Diego from Herrington, Kan.
The gun store's records show that two pounds of the powder were bought under that name on April 7 and again on May 1, according to a probable cause statement.
On Tuesday, Carlock allegedly tried to buy two bottles of a black powder at the same store, according to the probable cause statement. She "acted surprised" by a new store policy to keep a photocopy of a buyer's identification card and left. She allegedly returned five minutes later to cancel the purchase and ask for the photocopy.
The explosives dealers are not named in court documents.
San Diego police records show the California driver's license belonged to a woman who appears to be a victim of identity theft, according to the probable cause statement. Police records indicate an unknown person cashed, or tried to cash, checks with the driver's license last year.
Carlock was convicted in San Diego Superior Court in 1999 for robbery and sentenced to two years in state prison, according to the statement. She was paroled to a halfway house in San Diego and completed probation in 2006.
The courthouse blast, which occurred about 1:40 a.m. on a Sunday near the vibrant nightlife scene of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter, could have killed someone, FBI officials have said. Debris was found lodged in a window about eight stories up the AT&T building across the street.
The FBI is determining whether the attack is related to a bomb that shattered the glass door of a FedEx building in San Diego around 2. a.m. on April 25. Authorities found a second bomb in the FedEx parking lot and detonated it.
The arrest was made in connection with search warrants executed at two locations Thursday in San Diego, the FBI said.
A detention hearing for Carlock was scheduled Wednesday in El Centro, about 120 miles east of San Diego.
Friend of Obama?
Must be a friend of Bill Ayers, finishing the bombings he didn’t get to do.
ping
Buying black powder - that also needs presentation of State ID - designed for muzzle loaders to make bombs is *stupid.*
http://www.hodgdon.com/tripleseven.html
This is the “explosive” she bought from an “explosives dealer”- a gun store.
BATFE has recently decided that flash powder, used in firecrackers, and potassium nitrate-sugar are “high explosives” under regulation.
This woman did something very bad and dangerous, no doubt, but some of the wording is worrisome.
Unfortunate that she wasn’t caught before the bombing.
Substitute agar-agar for the sugar. You will not believe...........
Or Vitamin C, for that matter.
hmmm reminds me of the old Hearts and Diamonds on playing cards, some kerosene and a large glass container...... life is funny.
urban legend bombs, I mean...
The burning of the nitric acid will convert that stuff to nitrocellulose so fast that you will get an intermediate stage of chemical change that's more akin to nitroglycerin than anything else.
Just a simple powder should give you white hot flare 4 meters high.
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