Oct 13, 2008 9:20 pm US/Pacific
Man Straps On Fake Bomb, Walks Into SF Law Firm
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
A blinking device a man wore into a San Francisco law office Monday afternoon triggering a bomb scare was later determined to contain no explosive material, police said.
Police arrested the man after cordoning off streets and evacuating ten floors in a financial district high-rise at 275 Battery Street.
The man walked into the 30th floor law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein about 12:40 p.m. and told the receptionist he had a bomb, said SFPD Sgt. Neville Gittens.
Gittens added that the man was wearing a device featuring a white tube and a flashing light.
Floors 20 through 30 of the building were evacuated, and Battery at California streets was shut down, as two police bomb squad trucks sat in front of the high-rise and bomb squad technicians huddled inside.
Hundreds of employees dressed in business attire formed a semicircle around the front entrance to the building, waiting to be let back in by armed guards. Some chatted on their cell phones and others read the paper.
The bomb squad took about four hours to determine the device worn by the suspect was not explosive, Gittens indicated.
However, witnesses quoted the man as saying he was angry because he had not been selected to appear on the TV game show, "The Price is Right."
Late Monday night, the suspect was identified by police as 44-year-old Anthony Scardino. According to Gittens, Scardino does not have a local address.
Scardino was booked on two felony charges. One was for making criminal threats and the other was for intent to frighten the law firm employees.
Gittens did not specify which firm was allegedly threatened but the law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is located on the 30th floor of that building.
Gittens couldn't specify why the suspect had targeted that specific law firm but said he had previously had some type of disagreement with the firm.
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