Driver Sent to Prison for Carrying 6 Bombs

A Northridge trash-truck driver was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison Friday for having six pipe bombs in his pickup truck and pointing a gun at another motorist.

Frank John Salado, 40, was convicted March 24 by Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Raymond Mireles, who sent Salado to prison.

Salado was found with the bombs July 1. Los Angeles police closed a section of Topanga Canyon Boulevard near Saticoy Street for about six hours while police explosives experts destroyed the bombs.

Authorities said the bombs were powerful enough to cause death or serious injury, but they said they did not know what Salado planned to do with them.

Salado had pointed a gun at a car whose driver called police and led them to Salado’s pickup, where officers found the bombs and two loaded handguns, authorities said.

According to a probation officer’s report, Salado contends that he found the bombs on top of a trash truck he was cleaning while on the job earlier that day at a garbage-hauling firm in Simi Valley. He said he did not know the devices were bombs, the report said.