Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Man Pleads No Contest in Bombing

A 70-year-old Monrovia man pleaded no contest Tuesday to charges that he exploded a pipe bomb underneath his ex-wife’s unoccupied pickup truck.

Charles Edwin Smith, who made his plea in Superior Court, is expected under terms of a plea bargain to be sentenced to four years in state prison for felony use of a destructive device and stalking in violation of a restraining order.

If the plea agreement is accepted when he is sentenced June 28, three other felony charges filed against him will be dropped.

The plea bargain upset Smith’s ex-wife, Rini Duzanne, who said the April 18 explosion in front of the Lancaster home of Duzanne’s daughter was one of many such acts of harassment that she has had to endure since leaving Smith six years ago.

“I was disappointed they’re only going to lock him up for four years,” said Duzanne, 51. “He’ll get out in two. He’s been hunting me for six years. I’ll have two years of peace.”

Had Smith been convicted of all five counts--including explosion of a pipe bomb beneath Duzanne’s motor home, making terrorist threats and possessing the materials to make a destructive device--he could have faced as much as 20 years in prison, according to his attorney, Michael C. Eberhardt.

“There was a lot of evidence against him,” Eberhardt said. “At his age, he didn’t want to risk (a sentence of) 15 to 20 years.”

As far as Duzanne was concerned, even two decades would not be enough. “I think they should lock him up forever,” she said.

Duzanne said that she was with Smith for 10 years, including six years of marriage, and that he was abusive to her throughout. When Duzanne finally decided to leave him, she said he promised to harass her.

“He told me I would never get away with leaving him,” she said. “The man’s a maniac. Normal people don’t go around trying to kill people.”