The FBI arrested a Green Township man this week they say is responsible for detonating homemade explosives in wooded areas across Greater Cincinnati.
Robert Gilb, 50, was arrested June 10 by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after agents connected Gilb to at least three explosions in Hamilton and Butler counties.
The federal investigation began in April after Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies responded to a loud explosion and white smoke in a wooded area off East Miami River Road in Cleves. There, deputies found a small pipe, a small piece of wire and 10 batteries housed together in the radius of 50 feet, according to a sheriff’s office incident report.
The FBI took over the investigation and connected it to two similar explosions in Butler County a month earlier.
Butler County sheriff’s deputies told the FBI in March they went to a neighborhood in Okeana, a small unincorporated community off State Route 126, for a dispute between neighbors. The dispute followed an explosion nearby similar to the one in Cleves.
Then, days later, a witness to another explosion nearby reported seeing a white BMW parked prior to the detonation. Authorities learned Gilb was the owner of that BMW.
After talking to “multiple witnesses,” a federal agent wrote in court documents Gilb was identified as a person involved in construction explosives.
Gilb faces charges of possession of an unregistered destructive device and transporting explosive materials without a permit, according to court records. Those are federal crimes punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly Norris said in a news release.
Gilb is expected next in federal court in Cincinnati on June 12 at 1:30 p.m. before Magistrate Judge Karen Litkovitz.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: FBI accuses Green Twp. man of detonating homemade bombs in woods across Greater Cincinnati
Reporting by David Ferrara, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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