BONIFAY, FLORIDA - A man jailed in the Florida Panhandle on fraud charges also faces unrelated allegations in Georgia that he planned to extort banks by hiding pipe bombs in flower pots and lanterns. <br>
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Hampton, Georgia, police investigator Billy Ward said yesterday that 49-year-old David Allen Nesbitt is charged with making he bombs. He said Nesbitt's mother-in-law found them when whe was moving his belongings. <br>
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Ward said the bombs may be connected to never-mailed letters threatening banks and demanding money that were found in Nesbitt's Bonifay home. <br>
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Ward said, ``I guess he was going to extort money. That's all we could figure. When he was arrested, it really spoiled everything for him.'' <br>
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Nesbitt and his 45-year-old wife, Sherry, were arrested in Georgia last month on a Florida fugitive warrant charging them with an investment scheme in Holmes County, Florida. <br>
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Holmes Sheriff Dennis Lee said Nesbitt raised more than $100,000 for a proposed manufacturing plant in Bonifay that never was built. <br>
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Sherry Nesbitt's mother found the bombs after the couple had been returned to Florida. She accidentally dropped a flower pot, tearing a decorative wrapping and exposing a hidden pipe bomb. <br>
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David Nesbitt is charged in Florida with grand theft, fraudulent transactions, sale of non-registered security bonds and sale of securities by a non-registered person. Sherry Nesbitt is charged with grand theft. <br>
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Ward said the husband likely will return to Georgia to face bomb charges after his case is resolved in Florida. He said the wife apparently was uninvolved with the bombs.
