A 49-year-old Pulaski County man, James Patrick Huff, was sentenced Wednesday to nearly five years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device -- a pipe bomb.
In early May of 2018, Pulaski County sheriff's deputies reported finding 14 pipe bombs in a container buried in Huff's yard at 18214 Amazon Lane, in the southern part of the county, after finding two other bombs at his ex-wife's house on Ironton Road a week earlier.
The ex-wife, Angela Poole, told deputies that Huff had threatened and harassed her for the past several days. She said she then received a call from her landlord saying he had found a "stick of dynamite" near her home while mowing the lawn. When deputies went to talk to the landlord, he showed them the object, which he had in the front seat of his vehicle, prompting the arrival of federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents as well as the Little Rock Fire Department's bomb squad and the Arkansas State Police.
A neighbor also turned over an explosive device that he said he and Poole's landlord took away from a young boy who walked up to them a day earlier, saying he thought it was a firecracker. The neighbor said he took the item from the boy and threw it away, but later turned it over to police.
A woman who identified herself as Huff's mother told a reporter in 2018 that she believed her deceased ex-husband built the bombs eight to 10 years earlier out of fear that the United States would descend into martial law under President Barack Obama. She said her son found the bombs while cleaning out a shed that her husband had kept locked, and she thought the devices had since been destroyed.
According to Huff's plea agreement, filed Wednesday during a joint plea and sentence hearing, Huff later admitted he had thrown two pipe bombs in Poole's yard. Huff was a convicted felon and knew it was illegal to possess the bombs, the agreement said.
In addition to the 57-month sentence, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker ordered Huff to forfeit a Mossberg .30-06-caliber rifle and related ammunition.
Metro on 06/04/2020