Humor
Man Blows His Hand Off in Booby-Trapped Apartment

By MICHAEL COOPER
May 2, 1997 - The New York Times

NEW YORK -- A Bronx man who booby-trapped his apartment with homemade bombs accidentally blew his left hand off Thursday morning, the police said, prompting the evacuation of dozens of families from the area while the remaining explosives were dismantled.

The man, John Saperstein, 36, an unemployed construction worker, set off one of the bombs in his apartment at 1054 Longfellow Ave. in East Tremont shortly before 8 a.m., the police said. Neither the woman Saperstein lived with nor their 18-month-old daughter was hurt.

At Lincoln Hospital, where he was taken for surgery, Saperstein told the police there were two more bombs in the apartment, officers said.

But the police found four more explosive devices in the apartment, which was cluttered and squalid, said Assistant Chief John Scanlon, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Bronx. One device was rigged with translucent fishing wire and was primed to explode when the wire was tripped; another was hidden in a flashlight; a third was in a small container the size of a shotgun shell, and a fourth was hidden in a box of baby wipes, he said.

Just what Saperstein -- who has a criminal record dating back to 1983 for weapons possession, disorderly conduct and drug possession -- was doing with all the explosives puzzled investigators.

"There's no indication he was involved in any group," said a police investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There were no rantings or anarchist writings of any kind."

But a man who was visiting the neighborhood said that in the one conversation he had with Saperstein, Saperstein mentioned various right-wing organizations.

"He started mentioning the Patriots of America and the militia and I said, 'Oh, I've got to go,' " said David Lao, 37, who was visiting from Fort Reilly, Kan.

Lao, a civilian employee on a military base, said that Saperstein had quizzed him about plastic explosives."He started talking about C-4 and Semtex and automatic weapons," he recalled. "I was like, 'Hey man, back off.' "

Neighbors were startled by the noise of the blast, and by the news that one of their neighbors had apparently been concocting explosives on their tree-lined block of row houses just off the Bruckner Expressway.

"At first I thought maybe a car had backfired," said Fabian Hamlet, 36, who lives next door. "Then I saw fire trucks going by and I thought I'd be nosy, so I went outside. That's when I heard it had been a bomb, so I got everyone out of my house."

Other neighbors, including several children, said that Saperstein sold them fireworks and weapons. "Last year he sold me about $30 worth of ashcans and M-80s," said Edward Oserio, 24. "He also sold kids lipstick knives, knives disguised as lipstick tubes, and knives inside pens."

A 14-year-old boy displayed a razor blade in a duct-tape case. "John gave me this," said the boy, who gave his name only as Roger.

As special container trucks waited to cart the explosives off to the Police Department's firing range at Rodmans Neck, neighbors, some still in their pajamas, waited to be allowed back into their homes. The Red Cross gave dinner to about 20 families and set up a shelter at nearby Public School 75.

The authorities said that Saperstein may have learned how to make incendiary devices while working for his family's construction company in New Jersey. Tucked in among the garbage, baby food jars and cans of cat food that littered his apartment, they found bullets, hypodermic needles and several books on explosives, including "The Anarchist Cookbook," they said.

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Updated 21 May 1997