A man who manufactured bombs and stored large amounts of explosives in his rented home in North County, which had to be destroyed, was sentenced today to 30 years in federal prison.
Investigators and attorneys have disclosed no motive for the defendant's bomb-making activities at the house he shared with his wife. U.S. District Judge Larry Burns sentenced Jakubec to the maximum sentence.
Jakubec admitted being armed with a loaded firearm when he robbed a Bank of America in San Diego of $43,000 on Nov. 13, 2009. He also pleaded guilty to being armed and going into the same bank two weeks later and trying to rob the financial institution, but leaving when he saw a security guard.
As part of his plea, Jakubec also admitted robbing a Bank of America on Scranton Road in San Diego of $1,480 on June 25, 2010, and stealing $10,400 from another BofA branch on Carmel Mountain Road last July 17.
Jakubec will have to repay the county of San Diego $541,000 for the cost of burning down the rental house and making the area safe before it was set on fire.
Defense attorney Michael Berg said that Jakubec felt vindicated because he didn't have to plead guilty to charges relating to the unlawful manufacture of possession of destructive devices.
Jakubec was arrested last Nov. 18 after a landscaper was seriously injured by stepping on some stones outside the home, detonating some volatile chemicals.
The cache of compounds possessed by Jakubec included substances used by suicide bombers and the so-called underwear and shoe bombers, authorities have said.
A state prosecutor who handled the case before it was turned over to federal authorities described the cache as the "largest quantity of these types of homemade explosives ever found at one place in the United States.''
Deputy District Attorney Terri Perez said Jakubec turned the rental home in unincorporated Escondido into a "bomb factory.''
The discovery of the stockpile prompted then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare the San Diego region a disaster area. Likewise, the county Board of Supervisors ratified a local emergency declaration over the dicey situation.
After weighing the risks posed by the explosive chemicals, sheriff's officials decided that burning down the house was the only reasonably safe way to dispose of the hazardous substances.
On the morning of the Dec. 9 controlled burn, deputies closed roads in the neighborhood and evacuated dozens of surrounding residences before a bomb squad remotely ignited the condemned home via a series of charges placed throughout it.
The resulting blaze reduced the house to a pile of smoldering rubble within about 90 minutes. Over the subsequent several weeks, environmental health personnel had to complete an exhaustive soil cleanup on the parcel where the contaminated home had stood.
