Yelm man sentenced to 3 months on explosives charge

A 31-year-old Yelm man was sentenced to three months in jail Friday after he pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of an explosive device.

Jeremy L. Stahl was arrested in October 2015 and was released on $2,500 bail. He pleaded guilty to the charge in December, and was sentenced by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor on Friday.

Stahl’s attorney, Christian Cabrera of the Office of Assigned Counsel, said that Stahl regretted his actions.

“He feels very foolish for having in his possession the device which brought him here today,” Cabrera said.

Stahl will receive credit for the time he has already spent in jail.

Court documents give the following account of the events leading to his arrest:

A Yelm police officer saw a white Oldsmobile pull out of a driveway on Yelm Avenue. He recognized the car, and knew that it belonged to a woman with a suspended license.

The officer turned on his lights to initiate a traffic stop, and the car turned onto Vancil Road. The driver swerved into the other lane, then eventually pulled over in the Safeway parking lot.

The officer recognized the driver as Stahl, who said he was only driving to help his girlfriend’s father. He told the officer that he had an outstanding warrant and a suspended license.

He also told the officer that he was carrying marijuana, psilocybin mushrooms and a meth pipe.

When the officer searched the man, he found a green cylinder, between 4 and 5 inches long, with a fuse running out of it. The cylinder was wrapped in electrical tape.

Stahl said that he had purchased a firework on the Nisqually Indian Reservation, and that he had removed the artillery round. The officer asked Stahl why he had wrapped it in tape, and Stahl said that he was “just being stupid.”

The officer didn’t believe that the device looked like a piece of a firework.

The Washington State Patrol Explosives Unit destroyed the device, and confirmed that it was an explosive.

This story was originally published January 15, 2016 at 2:56 PM with the headline "Yelm man sentenced to 3 months on explosives charge."