Marine Faces Booby-Trap Charges
A Camp Pendleton Marine has been indicted in Tucson on two felony charges of setting explosive booby-traps near a middle school.
Jonathan I. Curtin, 24, is accused of planting five booby-traps by running a trigger wire from a tree, across a sidewalk and to a fence along the side of Roskruge Middle School in Pima County, Ariz.
The indictment handed down Thursday by a grand jury charges Curtin with one count of unlawful depositing of explosives and one count of disorderly conduct.
Curtin, who was on leave from Camp Pendleton, told investigators he placed the explosives to play a joke on passersby, said Sgt. Brett Klein, a Tucson police spokesman.
The devices--three booby-trap simulators and two illumination devices--are commonly used for military training, Klein said. Though not intended for harm, the training devices can cause severe burns.
Police began searching for devices after a pedestrian reported tripping a wire near the school, causing a small explosion and a cloud of smoke. The pedestrian was not injured.
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