Not mentioned in the above report, and in the lead NBC story last night: The police were immediately suspicious of the owner when they showed up and he somehow had the foresight to lead the police thru the back door - where going in the front door would of set off the device.

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Milan Bolich Jr. 54, center, is escorted out of the East District Police Department in Jersey City, N.J., Monday, May 17, 2010. Police said the Bolich placed a bomb in a pizzeria that had been rented by a man with whom he'd battled over back rent.
](AP Photo/Rich Schultz)





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The man who was arrested was the owner of the building NOT the pizzeria.

Arrest in New Jersey pizzeria bomb plot

JERSEY CITY (WABC) -- Police have arrested the landlord of the building where investigators foiled what they described as a potentially deadly plot.

Jersey City Deputy Police Chief Peter Nalbach called the bomb "very rudimentary." It was described as a gas can rigged with a wire that was placed inside the pizzeria's front door, possibly intended to detonate when someone opened it.

"If you watched 'MacGyver' as a kid you could probably figure out how to do it," Nalbach said, referring to the 1980s TV show. "But if it had gone off, there would have been major destruction."

A bomb squad member was seen removing a clear container holding an amber-colored liquid from Willy Joes's pizzeria. Police Chief Thomas Comey said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives was examining the container's contents.

On Monday night, police arrested Milan Bolich, 54, the landlord and owner of the building at 451 Palisade Avenue. He was charged with aggravated arson, risking widespread injury and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes.

There was no evidence that the incident had terrorist undertones, Comey said.

"Let me say emphatically that there is no nexus to any terrorist group or organization," he said. "This appears to be an isolated incident that stems from this one location."

The pizzeria sits on a block of attached homes and businesses across from a park that features a panoramic view of Manhattan's skyline. Police evacuated buildings along the block and closed the street for several hours. By noon, traffic was allowed through and residents were back in their homes.

Police and firefighters responded to the building for a report of a gas leak at about 5:30 a.m. They found the would-be bomb after entering the building through a back door, police said.

Sonia Roman, whose ground-floor apartment opens onto a side street around the corner from the pizzeria, said she smelled a strong gas odor when she went out to get her newspaper and immediately called 911.

"It was a foul odor, it was nasty," she said. "My alarm was going off and I wasn't even cooking, so that got me thinking. I just did what anybody would do. They got here very quickly."

Roman said she walked around the corner and saw a wire sticking out from under the front door of the pizzeria.

Comey said the building's owner and the tenant who ran the pizzeria had an ongoing dispute over several weeks that had spilled into court. In fact, he said, they were due in court Monday. The dispute may have been exacerbated when the pizza-making equipment was removed from the shop last week, though it was not clear who owned the equipment or whether it was removed illegally.

Alberto Gonzalez, a neighbor who said he worked at the pizzeria, said he helped his boss move the pizza-making equipment out of the store.


http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7445760

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True.

Most "out of place" dwellings in the middle of row houses downtown were "burned" in the 1970's. There used to be a big theater (Capitol Theater) next to the Bank of America on Newark Avenue. Burned for two days.

I've always been under the impression that a similar thing must have happened (successfully) at the building across from LITM that is now an abandoned lot -- was there ever any resolution to that one? They cleared out the wreckage so fast that I have trouble believing there was a proper investigation.

I'd be leaning toward the landlord. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened.

Cool..... someplace else for Vega to drive to...

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My money would be on the landlord.
Of course, I have no reason to think that other than an amateur mystery plotting tendency.

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woah! woah! woah! How do you know it was him and not the landlord?? Or how do you even know it was either?

And speaking of bombing...

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It may be for the best the food there was horrible. It was only a matter of time befor it went under anyway.

I was walking past Willy Joes a week or 2 ago and saw a sign explaining that they were closing due to the landlord refusing to fix a roof leak and clean up the backyard. When the guy inside saw me reading the sign, he insisted that I come in to survey the issues, telling me that he couldn't run a pizzeria with these unsanitary conditions. He showed me damaged ceiling tiles due to the roof leak in the kitchen and a pile of construction debris in the backyard. He mentioned some sort of lawsuit as well. He told me they were planning on relocating, possibly to Westside Ave and Sip.

He forgot to mention that he was plotting to blow the place up.

I guess we know what happened to Willy Joe's. Apparently this was regarding a Tenant/Landlord dispute. I'm pissed that I never got my $7.00 pie!

JERSEY CITY -- A 6 a.m. call about a potential gas leak to led to a major response by police and firefighters to a three-story building and the discovery of a gasoline can with an ignition device wired into it, this morning.

Officials arrived at 451 Palisade Avenue near Griffith Street to the report of gas fumes in a building. Firefighters found the source and PSE&G shut off the gas in the building, officials said.

Then officials found a gasoline can with an ignition device wired into it, causing Jersey City police to block off numerous roads and evacuate an entire city block, officials said.

JCPD's Emergency Medical Service's Bomb Squad is investigating the scene as crowds are gathered at the corners looking on.