Pahrump Valley Gazette, Thursday, March 13, 1997 9
Update on E;eatty explosives
By Gazette Staff
Richard Warn, the man whose shed full of explosives
was discovered in Beatty last month, leads a charmed
life. Three weeks after numerous law enforcement agen-
cies descended on Warn's cache not to mention his
truck load of explosives and, quite possibly, a metham-
phetamine laboratory in Indian Springs _ he has not been
arrested.
In what appears to be a case of too many cooks stir-
ring the soup, the Gazette has learned that Warn's case
has been passed from one agency to another. The State
Fire Marshall's office now has the case and says it is
looking into the matter to see if there are grounds for
further investigation.
From discussions with various law enforcement offi-
cials, the Gazette has been able to piece together a par-
tial sequence of events that began around February 12,
when authorities in
Clark County busted a
methampethamine lab
in the middle of Indian
Springs. No one was
at the lab when it was
raided, and, while no
official would confirm
that the lab was
Warn's, one high law
enforcement source
said Warn was a sus-
pect in that lab and he
made an initial admis-
sion to Las Vegas Met-
ropolitan Police offic-
ers who stopped him
the day before his ex-
plosives caches were
discovered.
On February 13 au-
thorities found Warn
with a truck full of ex-
plosives in Clark
County. He then told
them about his storage
shed in a closely
settled Beatty neigh-
borhood. Authorities
evacuated the area and
removed the explo-
sives.
Sheriff Wade
Lieseke said the ex-
plosives were not re-
lated to a meth opera-
tion. "Some of them
were chemicals and
some were rocket mo-
tors," which can be
ground up and used to
make explosives. The
state Fire Marshall
and the federal Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms (ATF)
deactivated them, he
said.
Nye County offi-
cials believed that the
ATF was going to pur-
sue the case and
turned its evidence over to the agency, the Gazette has
learned. On Wednesday, Ed Verkin, the resident agent
in charge of the ATF's Las Vegas office said that, be-
cause most of Warn's explosives were Class C fireworks,
"I don't believe there are going to be federal charges."
Possession of such materials are, however, against state
law, Verkin told the Gazette. And he suggested that the
Fire Marshall might bring charges related to the dan-
gerous manner in which the materials were stored.
Warn, according to one source, told the ATF that he
was building bombs for his friends, but that he was tired
of doing it. The source said Warn's friends were more
involved with the small-time drug scene than with any-
thing political.
Warn's explosives were certainly dangerous, Verkin
conceded, especially the Estes-type rocket motors. So,
while Warn is still at liberty, perhaps it is the neighbors
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