Ex-dealer: Sold some grenades to Mann

LITTLE ROCK — As a second week of testimony ended Friday in Dr. Randeep Mann’s federal bombing trial, a retired arms dealer testified that years ago, he sold the Pope County physician hand-held and launcher-propelled grenades.

The retired dealer, Lloyd Hahn of St. Charles, Mo., said that nearly 100 40mm grenades he sold to Mann for $55 apiece were just like the 98 live grenades that were unearthed near Mann’s house on March 4, 2009, a month after a West Memphis bombing injured Dr. Trent Pierce.

Hahn said he also sold Mann eight black “concussion” grenades that were “quite similar to” an inert hand-held grenade sitting in the courtroom that explosives experts have said was the type that exploded outside Pierce’s West Memphis home.

Fragments of the homemade bomb, which was attached to the back of a spare tire left in Pierce’s driveway, were used to determine how the device had looked before it exploded.

Pierce, chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board that was about to consider whether to yank Mann’s medical license, was severely injured and nearly killed in the blast.

Hahn testified that the hand-held grenades he sold Mann were merely “flash bang grenades,” not designed to kill, but usually used by law enforcement to stun people as officers enter buildings to serve warrants.

Explosives experts testified previously that the grenade used in the bombing could have previously been an inert grenade that someone filled with TNT, an explosive powder, to make it potentially deadly.

Hahn said the eight concussion or “flash-bang” grenades that he sold Mann were similar to the grenade in the courtroom in several respects - size, color, having a pin at the top, and a lever, or spoon, along the side.

He remembered the Russellville physician as “a superb customer” and a member of his trusted “inner circle,” to whom Hahn said he felt comfortable selling illegal weapons, including a reconfigured Russian machine gun that Mann is accused of illegally possessing.

Although Hahn’s blunt and colorful answers often made jurors laugh, providing levity in an otherwise serious trial, he also showed his serious side. He emphasized that he agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors only after being granted immunity to protect himself from possible charges.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Jack Lassiter, Hahn acknowledged that his relationship with Mann wasn’t perfect. He said Mann, unlike most other customers, was known to complain about the appearance or workability of weapons he bought from Hahn, sometimes for several thousand dollars.

“I never had problems with anyone else like I did with Dr. Mann,” he testified. “He was very picky.”

Jurors also heard Friday from the owner of a Russellville security company, River Valley Alarm Co., which provided an alarm system for Mann’s home in London in Pope County from the fall of 2001 until last September.

Jeff Kimbrough testified that he has been in many nooks and crannies of the Mann home on numerous occasions to install and service the alarm system, and that during those visits, he saw what he later learned were grenades.

Shown photographs of the live 40mm grenades unearthed from a field near Mann’s home, and the black hand-held model in the courtroom, Kimbrough agreed that both were “similar” to what he had seen in the house.

However, Kimbrough acknowledged that he didn’t know much about explosives and agreed on cross-examination that the items he saw also looked “similar” to a photograph that defense attorney Erin Cassinelli Couch showed him. The photograph wasn’t of grenades but depicted an open box of large caliber ammunition resembling cigars.

U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller, who is presiding over the trial, said Thursday that he would permit prosecutors to take about 100 guns seized from Mann’s home into the courtroom to show jurors. But on Friday, Miller changed his mind and refused to allow the guns.

Even though Mann is accused of possessing only two illegal guns out of hundreds he kept at his home, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Gordon and Karen Whatley wanted to use the display to demonstrate his sophisticated knowledge of weapons.

Miller also initially ruled that he wouldn’t allow prosecutors to take any of the live 40mm grenades into the courtroom, but on Friday, he said he had reconsidered, after hearing testimony from several witnesses that the grenades wouldn’t explode during routine handling.

One of those witnesses was Hahn, who admitted that when he bought the handheld grenades from another St. Charles, Mo., dealer, the man transported them to Hahn’s house “in the back of a pickup in a flimsy cardboard box,” alongside “a lot of ordnance,” including a deadly anti-personnel mine.

Hahn also acknowledged routinely shipping grenades through UPS without specifically telling the drivers what was in the shipments.He told Lassiter with a shrug, “I probably violated several laws.”

When Miller asked jurors if they wanted to see the actual live grenades in the courtroom, instead of photographs of them, three of the 14 jurors and alternates quickly raised their hands in opposition. Miller then declared that attorneys must continue to rely on the photographs and a dormant model in the courtroom.

While Mann, 52, is accused of orchestrating the bombing that occurred on the morning of Feb. 4, 2009, prosecutors haven’t accused him of placing the bomb at the scene. They also haven’t named anyone else as an accomplice.

Mann is also accused of illegally possessing a 12-gauge shotgun with a bigger-than-normal barrel that wasn’t properly registered, and a machine gun that was welded together from pieces of other guns without proper registration.

He is also accused of aiding and abetting his wife, Sangeeta “Sue” Mann, 49, in trying to hide documents from investigators. Sangeeta Mann, meanwhile, is accused of conspiring to obstruct justice and of lying to a grand jury investigating her husband.

The trial that began July 6 is expected to last four weeks. Miller said the trial will be in recess Monday to give attorneys time to prepare for additional witnesses.

Government witnesses will still be on the stand when the trial resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday. It isn’t known when defense attorneys will begin presenting their cases.