Marine pleads not guilty to having ammo in baggage; TSA probes how NV airport missed cache
Associated Press
06/20/09 3:20 PM PDT

BOSTON — A U.S. Marine pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he had bomb making materials, a gun and ammunition in his baggage at a Boston airport.

Cpl. Justin Reed, of Jacksonville, N.C., was freed on $2,500 bail after entering his plea to charges of possession of an infernal machine and possession of a concealed weapon at an airport at his arraignment in East Boston District Court.

Reed, 22, was arrested during a layover at Logan International Airport on Sunday morning after federal screeners found the items in his baggage. He was flying from Las Vegas to Charlotte, N.C.

"(The Transportation Security Administration) found prohibited and illegal items in the passenger's checked baggage, however they did not pose an imminent threat to aviation," agency spokeswoman Ann Davis said.

She described the items as a locked gun box containing a semiautomatic handgun; a hand grenade fuse assembly with detonator; model rocket engines with explosive material; a loaded gun magazine; and several boxes 9 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition.

The gun was declared with the airline, she said, but it did not have the proper paperwork when screeners in Boston found it.

A spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division told The Boston Globe that Reed uses explosives in his job training Marines at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

The Transportation Security Administration is investigating why the guns and ammunition were not detected in at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

"This incident has our full attention," Davis said.

Neither Reed nor his lawyer commented at the courthouse. Efforts to reach his lawyer were not immediately successful. Reed is due back in court May 18.

Ellie