Politics & Government

Judge Sentences Cobb Bomb Maker

Mark Young first came to law enforcement's attention in January 2012 when an undercover officer received information that Young had manufactured his own C-4, which is a type of plastic explosive.

A 46-year-old Cobb County man who sold a bomb to an undercover officer will spend the next five years and three months in federal prison.

United States District Judge Steven C. Jones sentenced Mark Young today on charges of possessing a destructive device.

“The recent tragedy in Boston underscores the havoc a homemade bomb can wreak,” United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said this afternoon in a news release. “We are committed to aggressively prosecuting those who put the safety and security of our citizens at risk by constructing explosives devices.”

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Mark Young first came to law ennforcement's attention in January 2012 when an undercover officer received information that Young had manufactured his own C-4, which is a type of plastic explosive.

The officer and Young started talking. The two would meet three times between Jan. 13, 2012, and April 2, 2012.

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On Jan. 13, 2012, Young met the undercover officer in a mall parking lot and provided the undercover officer with an unknown substance on a paper plate. Young said the substance could blow up a car if the undercover officer used it as a “shape charge on the gas tank.” He also said it could make an explosion that would be similar to a few “M‑80’s going off.”

The next month, Young told the undercover officer that he had a new batch of C4. Through a middleman, he sold the undercover officer the new material, which chemists with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives determined was an explosive.

During their final meeting on April 2, 2012, Young wore a ballistic vest and had a .44 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver sitting on his lap. After selling the undercover officer yet another new bomb for $750, he was arrested. The ATF determined that the bomb was an improvised explosive device, or IED.

Young pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a destructive device, and was convicted on Feb. 27, 2013. When he is released from federal prison, he will have to spend an additional three years under supervised release.

“ATF agents, working closely with our local law enforcement partners, arrested a violent individual who posed a significant danger to our community,” ATF Special Agent in Charge Christopher Shaefer said. “Through this cooperative effort, we were able to stop any potential harm to the citizens of Atlanta, Georgia.”


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