Former student pleads guilty to explosives charge

Friday, February 13, 2009

A December business graduate has been convicted of a federal explosives charge for blowing up a mailbox in the 2400 block of 24th Street in November 2007 and faces no fewer than five years in prison, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Michael Vanlerberg, 22 of Leawood, pleaded guilty to one count of destroying, by means of explosive, property owned by the United States and admitted to stealing and exploding a 100-pound fiberglass Jayhawk statute from the Legends Place Apartments, 4101 West 24th Place, said Jim Cross, representative of the U.S. Attorney in Kansas’ office. Vanlerberg’s plea agreement stipulates that he serve no fewer than five years federal incarceration and no more than 20. He also faces a maximum fine of $250,000 and no more than five years of supervised release following incarceration. His sentencing has been scheduled for June 1.

Cross said Lawrence Police officers responded to an explosion outside Vanlerberg’s apartment in the early hours of Nov. 30, 2007. The explosion of the mailbox also damaged three cars. Officers later found 54 explosive devices, components to make more explosive devices and a videotape of Vanlerberg blowing up the fiberglass Jayhawk in his residence, Cross said in a press release. Vanlerberg was a KU student at the time.

According to court records, Vanlerberg was arrested on campus in September 2008. His original indictment listed four counts of illegal explosives use.

Vanlerberg is currently under house arrest in Johnson County, Cross said.

— — Edited by Chris Hickerson

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Former student pleads guilty to explosives charge

This man is a business graduate, not the kind of person we would imagine to be committing these kinds of acts. What would drive someone to get a college degree and then jeopardise their future by this kind of behavior? What did he get out of blowing up the mailbox and the Jayhawk? What other things was he planning on blowing up? If these questions are answered would it then be possible to identify early on someone who is likely to do this or did his neighbors assume he was nice because he looked and acted nice?

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