2 Men Arrested in N. California Bomb Blasts

Two men were arrested Sunday in connection with bombings of the county courthouse and a bank, and authorities seized nearly 600 pounds of stolen dynamite in what they believe was a plot to destroy evidence in a pending criminal case.

No one was hurt in the pair of bombings, which rocked the Solano County courthouse, damaged three automated tellers outside a Wells Fargo bank last week, and prompted two wide-scale evacuations.

Vallejo police identified the two suspects as Francis Donald Ernestberg, 40, of Vallejo, and Oston G. Osotonu, 24, whose hometown was not listed. They were being held without bail on suspicion of conspiracy, possession of explosive devices and burglary.

A third man, Kevin Lee Robinson, 29, was being sought, and was considered armed and dangerous, police said.

“The motive, we believe, was an attempt to stop the county criminal justice system,” Vallejo police spokesman Lt. Ron Jackson said. “It’s not gang-related or militia-related or anything like that, but as simple as they wanted to stop a relatively serious court case and they thought if they could destroy the evidence they could stop the trial.”

The arrests capped a weeklong investigation that began Jan. 25 when two children found a dynamite-packed knapsack leaning against the outside wall of the city library.

On Sunday night, the discovery of 61 sticks of dynamite in a car, and 500 pounds more in the garage of a house, prompted the evacuation of about 20 blocks in a central Vallejo neighborhood.

Police believe that the suspects intended to use the explosives to target Vallejo’s police evidence facility, which is in the basement of the library. “We think it was going to happen relatively soon and you can imagine what 60 sticks of dynamite would have done,” Jackson said.

The stolen dynamite was discovered Sunday in two caches. One cache was found in the same boxes the dynamite was packed in when it was stolen, along with some blasting caps, in the garage of a house where “the surveillance has gone on for quite a bit of time,” said Jackson said. He would not be more specific.

After the first arrest about 2:30 a.m. Sunday in an east Vallejo apartment complex, a team of federal and local authorities recovered a brown Pontiac Grand Le Mans wired as a car bomb with 61 sticks of dynamite.

Then, officials found 500 pounds of stolen dynamite in the garage of a house about six blocks from the police station, and police joined federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents in going door to door evacuating residents at about 6:30 p.m.

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Pauline Wagner lives a few houses from where the dynamite was found in the garage. She was in her nightgown cooking an omelet when the doorbell rang. She looked out the window to see a man holding a rifle pointed skyward, and who hollered at her to evacuate.

“It’s scary. I’m a nervous wreck,” she said, wearing her robe and slippers as she stood outside the perimeter zone and fretted about her heart medication.

“This is supposed to be America, but it’s beginning to feel like a war zone. I hope that they put these people away forever.”

Claudio Bighi, leaning against a tree as he waited to get back into the house where he has lived for 25 years, was astonished when he heard about the dynamite. “Holy smokes. That’s enough to take out the whole area.”

Officials said they expected that residents would be able to return to their homes by midnight.

Authorities said Ernestberg had lived on and off for a number of years in the city about 37 miles northeast of San Francisco.

Jackson would not detail who among the suspects, if any, was connected with the court case, or the nature of the court proceedings, except to say that they were “substantive.”

Authorities said they have found no evidence that the suspects had connections to any other groups or cities.

Because the dynamite was apparently all stolen from the same source, authorities believe they have recovered virtually all of it.

Paul Snabel, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms , said evidence recovered so far does not indicate the group was sophisticated in its efforts, “but they had enough knowledge to make [a bomb] go off. They had a basic understanding of what they needed.”

“It could be a very devastating device in a city,” he added.

The mysterious bombings began unfolding when two children found the backpack with 30 sticks of dynamite rigged to three detonators, left in the ivy leaning against the wall of the John F. Kennedy library. After fiddling with wires coming out of the pack, the children--ages 10 and 14--alerted a security guard, who called police.

Before a technician dismantled the device, a nearby restaurant, a post office and City Hall were evacuated. Ferry service to the bayside town was delayed.

Hours later, a separate bomb exploded beside a row of automated teller machines at a Wells Fargo Bank. The blast--which also involved dynamite--shattered windows, punched a hole in the bank’s wall and damaged the machines.

Jackson said the bombs may have been planned for the library and the bank at the same time, with the bank blast intended to serve as a diversion, he said.

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Last Monday, a bomb threat against the county courthouse was delivered by telephone. The building was evacuated and searched, but no device was found.

Then, on Thursday, at about 3:30 a.m., the most powerful blast occurred, an explosion that tore through the night, gouging a 3-foot-wide chunk in the courthouse wall. It shattered 22 of the building’s windows and was felt blocks away, even damaging four businesses on nearby streets. The courthouse, which has about 100 employees, was closed for the day.

Investigators said the bomb was hidden in the bushes in front of the two-story building.

Jackson said major breaks in the case came when authorities were able to track the explosives used for the bombings, and were contacted by a number of people who apparently knew the suspects and had valuable information.

As police made headway in the Vallejo bombings, investigators in the San Diego area Sunday continued searching for the source of a spate of pipe bombs there.

Three similar devices were delivered by mail last week. On Thursday, a suspicious package was discovered at FBI offices in the San Diego suburb of Kearny Mesa during a routine screening of incoming mail. The building, filled with about 200 employees, was evacuated and the package was removed by robot and detonated by a bomb squad in the FBI parking lot.

Another similar device was discovered Friday at the offices of Laidlaw Waste Systems in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista.

And Saturday, a man whom Chula Vista police identified as a white, 45-year-old federal employee received a package containing two pipe bombs. FBI agents went to the employee’s home and left with armloads of guns and ammunition early Sunday, a neighbor said.

On Sunday afternoon, the Chula Vista post office received a telephone bomb threat but bomb specialists found no explosive device.