TACOMA — A Snohomish County man who served 10 years in prison for plotting to use a pipe bomb to blow up a Port Angeles motel in 2001 has been convicted of four felony weapons charges, U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes announced.
Robert Allen Stanard was convicted in federal court Thursday of illegally possessing two firearms, ammunition and an unregistered silencer, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, Hayes said.
Stanard, 41, served time for pistol-whipping a Port Angeles man and for plotting to kill the victim by blowing up his room at the Fairmount Motel on Nov. 13, 2001.
“But for the work of an alert Sequim police officer who stopped Stanard’s car due to a broken tail light, the bombing could have killed many innocent people,” according to a news release from Hayes’ office.
The jury deliberated for two hours before returning guilty verdicts on Stanard’s new charges Thursday, Hayes said.
Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, who presided over the three-day trial, scheduled the sentencing for April 13.
Stanard was arrested in Stanwood last Oct. 29 after reports of domestic violence, federal court papers said.
The alleged victim told Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies that Stanard had threatened to have a “shootout” with law enforcement if officers arrived, according to the federal complaint.
Stanard resisted arrest, slamming his head against a patrol car, and needed to be strapped to a medical gurney by deputies, court papers said.
He was found to be in possession of an AR-15 assault rifle and a Ruger .38-caliber pistol, the complaint said.
Stanard, a repeat offender who was prohibited from possessing firearms, had ordered more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition and gun parts online and directed his wife to purchase more ammunition, Hayes’ office said.
After his arrest, Stanard sent coded emails and spoke in coded jailhouse telephone calls to get family members to retrieve a third weapon, federal prosecutors said.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew Friedman and Joshua Ferrentino argued at trial that Stanard “hid behind his wife and family to own guns,” according to the news release.
Stanard is facing up to 10 years in prison for being a felon in possession of firearms.
In 2004, Stanard was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the Port Angeles case and for firing a weapon through the wall of a Utah apartment, prosecutors said.
Stanard was on pre-trial release for the Utah investigation when he was arrested in Sequim in November 2001.
According to charging documents, Evert Linnell Eoff sent Stanard and an accomplice to the Fairmount Motel on Nov. 12, 2001, to confront a man for his alleged involvement with one of Eoff’s girlfriends.
Stanard pistol-whipped the man with a silver-plated 0.32-caliber handgun while his accomplice hit the victim with a sock filled with marbles and stabbed him in the leg, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent Christopher Taylor wrote in court documents.
Stanard and his accomplice met with Eoff and “agreed to kill (the victim) by going back to the Fairmount Motel, where (he) was staying and blowing up his room,” Taylor wrote in federal charging papers.
The threesome drove from Port Angeles to Sequim to drop off an acquaintance before returning to the motel the next evening. They were stopped by a Sequim police officer for a traffic violation, Taylor said.
Port Angeles police detectives found a pipe bomb in the trunk of the 1989 Buick Skyhawk that Stanard was driving.
“The device consisted of a piece of PVC pipe with both ends capped, filled with smokeless powder and with .22-caliber ammo and ball bearings wrapped in duct tape,” Taylor wrote in the complaint.
The accomplice told investigators that he, Stanard and Eoff had agreed to “blow up” the victim by taping the bomb to the window or door of Room 103 and detonating it, Taylor said.
“They believed if (the victim) was killed, the state of Washington would not have a case against them for the assault,” Taylor said.
Eoff was charged with Stanard for the plot to bomb the motel. He was sentenced in 2004 to 22 1/2 years in prison for trying to solicit the murder of a federal prosecutor in 2002.
According to news reports, Eoff had agreed to exchange a Harley Davidson motorcycle for a hit on Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake while awaiting his trial in federal prison.