By Julie Manganis
BEVERLY — A judge yesterday decided that Robert Cohn, a Beverly man charged with keeping four homemade bombs, a gun and a collection of ammunition in his Tuck's Point condo, poses a danger to the public and ordered him held without bail.
Cohn, 56, was arrested earlier this month after police raided his condo and searched his Hummer. Beverly police detectives had been investigating Cohn for a couple of months after getting a series of complaints from neighbors about numerous visitors coming and going from his condo at all hours.
Then, police found someone who was willing to make two controlled purchases of drugs from Cohn, an informant identified in a search warrant affidavit as "Purple."
After the second transaction, police obtained the warrant. During the arrest, police found on Cohn about $2,000 in cash, as well as four small bags of heroin, about $500 worth; he was charged with possession with intent to distribute the drug.
Police, however, did not realize that they would also find four homemade explosive devices, which resembled half-sticks of dynamite, inside the luxury condo. Sgt. Michael Cassola testified yesterday that the devices were filled with highly explosive "flash powder."
The state police bomb squad "told me those things had to have been full of flash powder. If we were to have dropped them or threw them up against a wall, they would have exploded," Cassola said yesterday.
Instead, Cassola carried them to Sandy Point Beach, laid them on the sand and marked the area with two orange cones he found.
Then, he went over to a man sleeping in a sleeping bag on the beach and roused him.
The bomb squad, Cassola said, intended to use wires laid across the devices to split them open, which would have allowed them to examine and test the contents. But the devices instead exploded and were destroyed.
As Cassola testified, Cohn had a range of reactions, at times shaking his head or nodding, or grimacing. Sometimes he would look back at his ex-wife, who sat just feet away in the small hearing room.
Cohn's lawyer, Cesar Archilla, argued that the police may not have adequately supervised the informant during the controlled drug buys, which were the basis for the search warrant. If a judge agrees, the results of that search warrant would be inadmissible in court.
Archilla also said the destruction of the four devices also raises questions about the prosecution's ability to pursue those charges.
Salem District Court Judge Michael Lauranzano did suggest that police may have overcharged Cohn when they filed a complaint that he was illegally carrying a firearm.
"Where's the carrying?" asked Lauranzano, noting that the loaded .22-caliber handgun was found inside the condo — in an armoire in the bedroom.
Cohn was convicted in Suffolk County of illegally carrying a firearm and drug trafficking in 1989 and served part of an eight- to 10-year prison term before being paroled in the early 1990s (prior to the truth-in-sentencing law).
His criminal record stretches back 40 years and includes convictions for drunken driving and, in 2004, a continuation without a finding in a case involving OxyContin and cocaine.
Yesterday, a probation officer also asked Lauranzano to revoke Cohn's probation in that case. The judge ordered Cohn detained pending a final hearing on April 16.
