DENVER (AP) — A man accused of leaving a bomb outside a police station in a small Colorado mountain town to avenge the killing of a fellow member of a hippie group in the 1970s has pleaded guilty.
David Michael Ansberry acknowledged Tuesday that he left a powerful bomb containing arsenic outside the Nederland Police Department on Oct. 11.
When asked by the judge if he was guilty, Ansberry replied, "I'm guilty of leaving a destructive device in a deserted shopping center...which was NOT capable of causing mass destruction or mass casualties."
Ansberry told the judge he was pleading guilty because the government would seek a second charge that would have carried a 30-year consecutive sentence, which government attorneys confirmed. Ansberry said he didn't want to be in jail until he was 95 years old.
Surveillance video captured him buying cellphones to trigger the explosive. He was easily recognizable because he is 3-foot-6, 100 pounds and uses crutches.
The device did not detonate.
Investigators say he was trying to avenge the 1971 killing of his friend Guy Goughnor at the hands of Renner Forbes, who was a town marshal at the time. Forbes was convicted of the killing in 1998.
Ansberry will be sentenced on Nov. 30th.
