A US man with a years-long grudge against the FBI was charged with planting a bomb at a federal building in Detroit that sat undetected for three weeks, officials said Thursday.
The abandoned tool bag was discovered by an FBI employee outside the building on February 25 and reported to security, charging papers said.
A security guard took the bag inside, but it was not run through an x-ray machine until March 18, when the bomb squad was called after wires and electrical components were revealed to be inside a metal box in the bag.
The FBI traced the type of bag and a timer found inside to a Home Depot store in Iron Mountain, Michigan, nearly 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Detroit.
Police in Iron Mountain told the FBI they frequently received faxes in the middle of the night from Gary John Mikulich, 42, complaining about the FBI and their "so-called \'card system,\'" which he alleged was to blame for the death of his father and thousands of other people.
Mikulich also owns a white Oldsmobile which appeared to be "identical" to a vehicle shown on the Home Depot surveillance footage, the charging papers said.
"Based on the foregoing evidence there is probably cause to believe that Gary John Mikulich maliciously attempted to damage or destroy by means of an explosive" the federal building, FBI agent Mark Davidson said.
Mikulich will appear in court Friday to face the charges and faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.
It remained unclear why the bag was not tested immediately after it was found, but a Homeland Security spokesman told the Detroit Free Press the security guard who stored the bag without testing it was suspended from work.
"The FPS will continue to review the circumstances of this incident and take appropriate action with the contract service provider to ensure that proper protocols are followed," spokesman Chris Ortman told the paper.
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