By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
TRENTON — Federal weapons charges against a man prosecutors said planted two explosive devices in Trenton in April 2011 will be heard next month in U.S. District Court.
A jury trial for John Robert Kennedy, an Indiana native living in a Flat Rock mobile home, was adjourned last week by Judge John Corbett O’Meara. A tentative trial date of May 15 will begin for six charges faced by Kennedy from a July 2011 grand jury indictment.
Kennedy is charged with planting two explosive devices in Trenton, one in the high school parking lot and another near ACO Hardware, 2080 Van Horn Road. Kennedy allegedly made a telephone bomb threat to Trenton High School on April 28, and charges include being a felon in possession of firearms, possession of an unregistered firearm and manufacture of a destructive device.
The telephone call to the school was made from a cellular phone purchased three days earlier from Wal-Mart in Woodhaven. Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Michigan State and Trenton police departments traced the phone call and purchase, obtained video surveillance images from Wal-Mart, and tracked Kennedy to a mobile home in Flat Rock where he was arrested.
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected].)