A Florida veteran would have placed a bomb in the VA hospital and would have had another one at home

An army veteran is accused of placing an improvised explosive device (IED) at a veterans hospital in Florida, officials said.

Mark Edward Allen, 60, is charged with possession of unregistered explosives after the FBI said he left a trapped machine in a veterans' hospital in the Bay Pines area, near St. Petersberg, and that Authorities have found another bomb at his home, according to the United States. Office of the Attorney for the Middle District of Florida.

Allen is being held at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and appeared for the first time in court on Tuesday. If he is found guilty, he faces up to ten years in prison in a federal prison, according to the Attorney General's office.

A criminal complaint said that hospital staff had called the Tampa Police Department and the FBI on May 29 after discovering what they thought was a craft bomb on the property.

When the agents arrived, they secured the device and then inspected it to find that it consisted of "a 9-volt battery, electrical wires, an improvised initiator." , a clothespin switch and a pyrotechnic-type powder that can cause an explosion ". according to a criminal complaint.

Two days later, Allen's wife called the police to inform him that he had made a bomb at his home. She loaded him into his trunk while he was sleeping and brought it to a friend's house "because she was scared," according to the complaint.

Bomb technicians responded to the friend's home and, after inspecting the IED, "determined that the St. Pete and VA IEDs from the hospital probably came from the same person" said the complaint.

Surveillance footage also showed that Allen was placing IED at the VA hospital. His wife identified him in additional surveillance footage that showed him coming out of a Wawa located across the street, next to the hospital.

Allen's wife also told investigators that her husband was an army veteran who frequently goes to the VA Hospital in Bay Pines and made an appointment there during the week of May 27, according to the criminal complaint.

None of the "destruction devices" have been registered in the National Registry of Firearms Registration and Transfer, as required by law, the complaint said.