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SALT LAKE CITY — A man arrested last year for allegedly taking a "cricket bomb" into the downtown federal building will face a misdemeanor charge.
The U.S. Attorney's Office charged Brandon Bushnell, of Provo, with one count of improper storage of explosive materials.
Bushnell allegedly had the explosive in his jacket pocket as he entered the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building for an appeal hearing on the denial of Social Security benefits in November 2015. The bomb, described as a carbon dioxide cartridge with a fuse, was discovered during a routine security screening, according to a criminal complaint.
Bushnell said the material inside the cartridge was "flower dust," a "lay term for pyrotechnic composition found inside consumer fireworks," according to the complaint.
The discovery forced the evacuation of the building for nearly three hours while a Salt Lake police bomb squad unit examined the device.
A grand jury did not return an indictment in the case while Bushnell underwent a psychological evaluation. The initial criminal complaint accused him of unlawful possession of an explosive in a federal building.
