COLUMBUS – An anti-government activist who lost his hands in an explosion was building a bomb to use as a diversion during a bank or armored-car robbery, according to charges filed by a Columbus Fire Division investigator.
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The bomb contained the same explosive that was packed into suicide vests during the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris.
Alphonso D. Mobley Jr., 26, who lost both hands in the Tuesday explosion at a vacant East Side house, and Roberto M. Innis Jr, 21, who was not injured, were each charged with possession and manufacture of a dangerous ordnance in Franklin County Municipal Court.
Innis changed his story several times before telling investigators that Mobley had been mixing chemicals to make a bomb in the kitchen of the house on South Hampton Road when there was an explosion about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Columbus fire investigator Matthew Staker alleged in a written complaint.
Innis also said that both men were members of Sovereign Citizens, an anti-government group that a 2010 FBI report labeled as a group of anti-government extremists who believe they are separate or “sovereign” from the United States, according to Battalion Chief Steve Martin, a spokesman for the Fire Division.