Suspect Had a Doomsday Bunker : West Hills: Rose Ann Michaels says her husband, Gilbert, was using money from bank robberies to finish the elaborate shelter, where the FBI found 119 guns.

A West Hills man accused of nine bank robberies, including the biggest in Los Angeles history, was building an elaborate bunker complex under his hillside house with thick steel doors and a cache of arms to prepare for the end of the world, his wife said Tuesday.

Rose Ann Michaels said her husband, Gilbert, 47, was using profits from the robberies, which included a record $430,000 haul Sept. 5 from a Wells Fargo branch in Tarzana, to complete the survivalist-style shelter.

The FBI said a total of 119 guns--including two .50-caliber machine guns--and 25,000 rounds of ammunition were found in the bunker by agents who arrested Michaels and a companion Friday minutes after the latest robbery, that of a Home Savings of America branch on Victory Boulevard in Canoga Park.

Michaels’ sons, Isaiah, 15, and Jeremiah, 13, guided reporters on a tour of the bunker, which is reached through a trapdoor and by climbing down an eight-foot ladder under their expensive, four-story rented home.

Behind two thick doors, a 30-foot hallway leads off to the left. Rose Ann Michaels said it was to be used as a firing range. There is a heating and air-conditioning unit, several red emergency lights, and three other small rooms behind steel fire doors. Michaels had been building the bunker for about a year and had not finished, family members said.

The FBI said Michaels and James A. McGrath, 48, were preparing for Armageddon--the biblical last battle between the forces of good and evil.

Describing her husband as “like a prophet of old” who “has a message for the world,” Rose Ann Michaels said the United States has entered the period that some religious fundamentalists call the End Times and the weapons were being stockpiled to hand out to others who believe as they do.

Although Rose Ann Michaels, who is seven months pregnant with her fifth child, said money from the robberies was being used to finance the construction of the bunker, she said she was not admitting that her husband actually committed any robberies. She denied that her husband is a violent man. “My husband would never kill a fly,” she said.

She said her husband was trying to get caught so that he could gain a public platform for his message that America is in danger from a shadowy conspiracy that would disarm its citizens.

She also said he was trying to attract attention to his charge that he has been cheated out of a family inheritance by Wells Fargo Bank and others. She handed out a four-inch thick document alleging that the purpose of the theft of his inheritance, which she estimated at $1 million, was to keep him from competing with large candy makers by mass marketing “Rose Ann’s Old Style Fudge,” which she has been selling at local markets.

She handed out fudge samples to reporters Tuesday.

Rose Ann Michaels did not explain how the alleged conspiracy to steal the inheritance related to their belief in the arrival of the End Times and the need to build a military-style bunker.

But she said her husband’s intent to be arrested was clear. “There was a pattern to which he robbed the banks,” she said. “They were robbing the banks to get caught.”

Gilbert Michaels’ sister, Karen Semco, said the arrest of her brother came as a shock. As for the alleged conspiracy, she admitted that “we were all upset” at the handling of a trust fund left by their parents, William and Anna Semco, but added: “I didn’t realize he was that upset.”

Christopher Ashworth, a Los Angeles attorney, said he is a co-trustee with the bank for the estate, which now includes a shopping center in Dallas and six or seven condominiums around the country. He said Anna Semco did act to give her share of the estate to her grandsons, instead of to her son, before her death but that Gilbert Michaels has not been cheated out of anything.

“There is no grand conspiracy to do him out of any money,” he said.

Rose Ann Michaels said her husband and McGrath, whom she described as her husband’s best friend, were arrested while changing clothes in a van after the most recent robbery.

Michaels said her husband was not part of any organized group, but Los Angeles police said they are still searching for two other men and a woman believed to be involved in the robberies.

“They were good,” FBI Special Agent Charles Parsons said of the robbers. “They were meticulous in their planning.” Authorities said the robbers used elaborate disguises, wore military-style jumpsuits and carried automatic weapons.

Bookshelves in Michaels’ house are filled with religious texts. A fortune cookie type message is affixed to a bulletin board: “Your heart is pure and your mind clear and your soul devout.”

Rose Ann Michaels walked into her large bedroom with a view of the green hills of the San Fernando Valley and the sun reflecting off the wood deck outside. She pulled a picture out of a family album and showed it off. It shows Gilbert Michaels, a slender man with a receding hairline, wearing a pair of boxing gloves and striking a fighting pose.

“He’s ready to take on the world and that’s what he’s doing,” she said.

Isaiah Michaels said he knew his father had a few guns but had no idea how many. As for the bank robberies, the first the sons knew about them was when they came home Friday to find FBI agents around the house, they said.

Rose Ann Michaels said her two sons are both A students and have never been in trouble. Isaiah is taking boxing lessons. He said he respects his father’s beliefs but does not necessarily go along with everything.

“I still love my dad,” said Isaiah, cuddling the family dog, a mini-pinscher named Springer. If his father did do the robberies, “I know he has a reason. He always told me, before you do anything, think about it.”