By Shari Kaplan
A Los Gatos resident faces explosives-related charges in San Mateo County after police there allegedly found pipe bombs on his car last week as it sat parked in a San Carlos lot.
Gerald L. Gilbertson pleaded not guilty May 20 on charges of possessing destructive devices and materials for a destructive device and of carrying a destructive device in a vehicle.
His case returns May 29 to San Mateo Superior Court in Redwood City, with a preliminary hearing set for June 4.
Gilbertson was arrested May 18 in San Carlos when a police officer on patrol through a supermarket parking lot noticed two apparent pipe bombs in the grills of Gilbertson's 1993 Honda Civic.
Gilbertson was shopping at a Lucky store the morning that Officer Tom Mellott spotted the suspicious materials strapped to the engine compartment behind the grill, San Carlos police detective Vince Chetcuti said.
Mellott arrested Gilbertson when he returned to the car and booked him into the San Mateo County Jail. Other bomb-related materials were found inside the car, Chetcuti said, and the county bomb squad was called to remove the suspicious material.
San Carlos police detectives searched Gilbertson's Santa Cruz Mountains home the same day and discovered additional materials related to the use of explosive devices, Chetcuti added.
A private defender was appointed for Gilbertson, a court spokes-person said.
Los Gatos Police Sgt. Tricia Friedrich said LGPD detectives believe the incident is unrelated to February's pipe bombings in Monte Sereno.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 29, 1996.
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