Bus driver: 'Not totally involved' in alleged kidnapping of school children

GREENBELT, Md. - A Pennsylvania school bus driver accused of taking 13 children on a curious, 115-mile detour to Maryland with a loaded rifle by his side appeared in court on kidnapping charges Friday and told a magistrate he was &#34;not totally involved&#34; in the episode. <br> <br> Otto Nuss, 63, agreed to be transferred to Philadelphia, where a hearing was scheduled for later in the day. <br> <br> Police disclosed that they found 48 weapons in Nuss&#39; house, including three dozen handguns, and 75 rounds of ammunition on the bus. <br> <br> During a hearing in federal court in Greenbelt, U.S. Magistrate Charles B. Day asked Nuss whether he suffers from mental illness. <br> <br> Nuss replied, &#34;No sir, I&#39;m not insane.&#34; <br> <br> When Day asked Nuss if he understood the case against him, he said: &#34;I&#39;m not totally involved in it, is what I&#39;m saying.&#34; <br> <br> Nuss was captured Thursday just outside Washington after a six-hour odyssey during which he told the youngsters from a Pennsylvania religious school that he was taking them on a field trip to the nation&#39;s capital. <br> <br> A friend said Nuss had been treated for psychiatric problems and recently went off his medication. <br> <br> Public defender Daniel Stiller said after the hearing that Nuss believes that he is not totally responsible for bringing the children to Maryland and that there was a &#34;setup.&#34; Stiller refused to elaborate. <br> <br> &#34;It&#39;s a sad case, not a sinister one,&#34; Stiller said. <br> <br> School officials said that this was his first year driving a bus for them and that he had passed criminal background and child-abuse checks. <br> <br> In Pennsylvania, the Rev. Jim Smith offered prayers for Nuss at the service at the Exeter Bible Church, next to the Berks Christian School. <br> <br> &#34;Right now, he is alone in a jail,&#34; Smith said. Students nodded in agreement, then bowed their heads in prayer as Smith talked about Nuss. &#34;He really needs people to be praying for him.&#34; <br> <br> About 200 students, including at least three who had been aboard the bus, attended the service, school administrator Robert Becker said. <br> <br> Eighth-grader Josh Pletscher said the older students on the bus had a &#34;half-joking, half-serious&#34; plan if the driver reached for the rifle behind his seat. He said they moved up front and sent the younger students to the back of the bus after noticing the gun. <br> <br> &#34;If he would have gone for it, we were like joking around that we would have done something, that we would jump him,&#34; said Pletscher, 13. <br> <br> The students returned home with their parents early Friday, more than 16 hours after the driver left their usual route and began a trip that would end in Landover Hills, Md., where Nuss surrendered to an off-duty officer. <br> <br> Several students said Nuss told them they were going on a field trip to Washington. They said they played games, helped Nuss plan the route, and felt at ease when he stopped the bus to treat them to lunch at a Burger King. <br> <br> &#34;He never touched anybody,&#34; Pletscher said. &#34;We were having fun. We were having cars honk their horns.&#34; <br> <br> The bus had picked up the students, ages 7 through 15, in Oley, Pa., at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday for their daily six-mile trip to the religious school in Birdsboro. When the bus failed to reach its destination, residents, a police helicopter and cruisers frantically searched the route. <br> <br> Craig Ziemer, whose 11-year-old daughter Ashley was on the bus, called the six hours it was missing &#34;the most horrible thing I&#39;ve ever experienced.&#34; <br> <br> The students on the bus said the driver ignored a dispatcher who tried to contact him by radio, according to the FBI. <br> <br> &#34;He said he wanted to show them Washington, D.C.,&#34; FBI spokesman Peter Gulotta Jr. said. <br> <br> The journey ended with the bus parked outside a Family Dollar discount store in Landover Hills, a few miles from Washington. Nuss entered the store and approached off-duty Officer Milton Chabla, who was wearing his uniform, police said. <br> <br> Nuss told Chabla he had left a gun on the bus, that he had taken the children against their will and wanted to turn himself in, Chabla said. &#34;He wanted the kids to be OK and let their parents know they were OK.&#34; <br> <br> Pletscher said Nuss never touched the gun during the trip and that when a child noticed it, he said it was &#34;a symbol to bin Laden.&#34; <br> <br> &#34;It just didn&#39;t seem like he was kidnapping us,&#34; said ninth-grader Tyler Rudolph, 15. &#34;He told us we all needed a wake-up call and that we were going to learn something. And he was going to learn something, too.&#34; <br> <br> According to the affidavit, one of the students wrote 911 on a fogged bus window. <br> <br> Earl Derr, a longtime friend of Nuss, said Friday he had taken Nuss for psychiatric help in the 1970s and that Nuss had admitted himself to a hospital. Derr said Nuss had taken prescribed medication since then, but told him in November that his doctor said he could stop. <br> <br> &#34;I think he got off his medication, and it just worked on his nerves,&#34; Derr said. He said he didn&#39;t know what kind of medication. <br> <br> <br>