A former hippie who planted a bomb outside the Nederland Police Department to avenge a 45-year-old killing will have to wait to learn his fate after a federal judge decided Thursday that attorneys needed more time to prepare arguments over whether he committed a terrorist act.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Ansberry could receive a longer prison term if U.S. District Court Judge Christine Arguello determines that he committed a terrorist act. Arguello on Thursday gave attorneys on both sides a 30-day deadline to file pleadings on the issue.
The second day in David Michael Ansberry’s sentencing hearing featured a bomb expert, who was called by Ansberry’s defense team. However, that expert often agreed with prosecutors on major points about the lethality of the bomb, and he amused the courtroom with his foul language and crusty demeanor.
Bomb expert Jerry Taylor testified that a homemade device planted by Ansberry was flawed in design but was not a hoax.
Taylor, who often scolded Ansberry’s attorney, Abraham Hutt, for speaking too low, agreed with FBI agents that the bomb ingredient’s volatility made it dangerous even if it was poorly designed.
“If you dropped it and it blew up, odds are you are going to die. I don’t want one piece of it to hit me in the jugular vein,” Taylor testified. “Just because it didn’t blow up doesn’t mean it couldn’t blow up. That’s certainly true. That is the case.”
Taylor said he believed Ansberry intended to blow up the highly unstable compound on the morning of Oct. 11, 2016, in front of the Nederland police station.
Judge Christine Arguello asked, “It’s clear, isn’t it, that this was not a hoax bomb?”
Taylor replied, “Absolutely not.”
Ansberry’s defense attorneys argued that he never intended to kill or harm anyone because he planted the bomb and tried to detonate it when no one was around.
But Arguello argued over the point with defense counsel, saying that Ansberry’s own bomb expert acknowledged that the bombing was not a hoax. His intent and state-of-mind are the relevant points rather than what actually happened, she said.
“The fact that Mr. Ansberry’s device didn’t explode and kill or injure someone was merely a fortuity,” she said.
Early on the morning of Oct. 11, 2016, Ansberry left a duffel bag with an improvised explosive device outside the Nederland Police Department, which sits in a strip mall in the Boulder County mountain town.
Ansberry built the bomb to avenge the vigilante killing of a fellow member of a 1970s-era hippie gang called the STP Family, according to court records. In 1971, Nederland Marshal Renner Forbes killed Guy “Deputy Dawg” Gaughnor. Forbes confessed to the killing in 1997, three years before his death, but was never prosecuted.
An STP oil sticker with the phrase “RIP Deputy Dawg Murdered by Marshal 7/17/71,” was found next to the Nederland police station the day of the attempted bombing.
Ansberry tried 11 times to detonate it with a cellular phone signal. Taylor said he believed the bomb didn’t go off as intended because Ansberry used a Christmas light bulb as an igniter, and it simply wasn’t hot enough to trigger an explosion.
“There is no quality control if you are a bomber,” Taylor said. “You just do what you think would work.”
Authorities ultimately surrounded the bomb with sandbags and detonated it in a parking lot after evacuating nearby businesses and a school.
Ansberry bought a ticket on a flight to Baltimore, Md., after planting the bomb but was apprehended by FBI agents during a layover in Chicago.
