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MAN GUILTY IN EXPLOSIVES CASE STAFFORD JURY RECOMMENDS FIVE YEARS IN PRISON
Jury recommends five years for explosives thief
Date published: 1/25/2008
BY KEITH EPPS A Stafford jury this week recommended a five-year prison term for a man who had a large amount of stolen military explosives stashed outside his county home. James Oscar Dorries, 43, was convicted in Stafford Circuit Court Wednesday of possessing an explosive device and petty larceny. He will be formally sentenced on March 17. According to the evidence presented by prosecutor Tara Mooney, authorities began an investigation last May 17 after Dorries' 15-year-old son found a grenade in a shed behind the house on Lake Arrowhead. He told his mother, who contacted a Fairfax deputy whom she knew. The grenade turned out to be inert. But other items later recovered from the shed were potentially lethal. The items included three pounds of C-4 explosives, six electric blasting caps, a live military smoke grenade, a pop-up signal flare, fuse ignitors, various booby trap devices and seven rolls of tripwire. Police said the items had been stolen from the Quantico Marine Corps Base in the 1990s. Dorries worked as a combat engineer there and had access to the explosives. He left the Marines in 1996. Dorries was no longer living at the home when the explosives were found. He had been ordered by the court to stay away from the home following a domestic altercation a month or so earlier. Mooney said that when Dorries lived at the home, he didn't allow his wife and children access to the shed. Dorries admitted to police that he had the items, according to the evidence, but said he had no intention of using them. He told police that he was holding the items for someone and didn't know how to get rid of them. Mooney said Dorries' actions merited a significant prison term. She said the firepower stored in his shed could have caused major damage in the neighborhood even if they were accidentally ignited. Mooney said even trained military personnel don't keep C-4 and blasting caps stored together like Dorries did. "This man was tremendously reckless," Mooney said. "Something very bad easily could have happened." Dorries was court-martialed by the military in the 1990s for stealing explosives, according to the evidence. He served time in the brig and had his rank reduced from corporal to private. Keith Epps: 540/374-5404
Read more stories about Stafford Date published: 1/25/2008
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