Appendix Page 9

It had been the talk---and the terror---of the Lee County Attorney's Office since Wednesday:

An angry Fort Myers businessman, who had been denied an access road to one of his properties, hand-delivered a letter to an assistant county attorney detailing---down to the type of shrapnel he would use---how he would blow up the office and kill everyone in it with a pipe bomb.

Saturday, the Lee County Sheriff's Office arrested the alleged letter writer---Robert Allston, 57, who lives South of Fort Myers---and charged him with threatening to kill public servants.

And county attorneys, reminded of the slaying of Lee County School Superintendant James Adams earlier this year, were glad to hear about the arrest.

"This isn't small-time Fort Myers anymore," said assistant county attorney John J. Turner. "It used to be you'd read in the News-Press about these kinds of things that happened up North."

"Now we know it happens down here."

Allston, a real estate developer and businessman, delivered the eight page letter--titled "Notes on Institutionalized Corruption in the Lee County Attorney's Office"---Wednesday to assistant county attorney David Owen.

Commissioner Ray judah had arranged meetings between Owen and Allston, who was lobbying, without success, to set up a voluntary taxing unit that would fund a road accessing one of his properties to Island Park Road South of Fort Myers.

Before Allston left Owen's Office, he went on a "long historical diatribe concerning his project, the ridiculous decisions of the county's attorney's office, and the problems with government in general," an arrest report shows.

His proposal had been denied because it did not meet the guidelines of such a unit, officials said. Allston also left several copies of the letter with a secretary, asking her to circulate it to all the office attorneys.

In the letter, Allston described how he "could use his talents" to make a pipe bomb, complete with the deadliest shrapnel he could find, and put it in the "cheapest briefcase he could find," according to the arrest report.

He would then ride the county administration building's elevator to the sixth floor, where the county attorney's office is located, set down the briefcase, light the fuse and "exit briskly down the stairs."

"It was bizarre stuff," said assistant county attorney John Renner. "Stream-of-consciousness ramblings. And it got our attention. We took it with the concern that it demanded."

The office informed the State Attorney's Office and the sheriff's office. Deputies interviewed Allston before arresting him at a warehouse

It had been the talk---and the terror---of the Lee County Attorney's Office since Wednesday:

An angry Fort Myers businessman, who had been denied an access road to one of his properties, hand-delivered a letter to an assistant county attorney detailing---down to the type of shrapnel he would use---how he would blow up the office and kill everyone in it with a pipe bomb.

Saturday, the Lee County Sheriff's Office arrested the alleged letter writer---Robert Allston, 57, who lives South of Fort Myers---and charged him with threatening to kill public servants.

And county attorneys, reminded of the slaying of Lee County School Superintendant James Adams earlier this year, were glad to hear about the arrest.

"This isn't small-time Fort Myers anymore," said assistant county attorney John J. Turner. "It used to be you'd read in the News-Press about these kinds of things that happened up North."

"Now we know it happens down here."

Allston, a real estate developer and businessman, delivered the eight page letter--titled "Notes on Institutionalized Corruption in the Lee County Attorney's Office"---Wednesday to assistant county attorney David Owen.

Commissioner Ray judah had arranged meetings between Owen and Allston, who was lobbying, without success, to set up a voluntary taxing unit that would fund a road accessing one of his properties to Island Park Road South of Fort Myers.

Before Allston left Owen's Office, he went on a "long historical diatribe concerning his project, the ridiculous decisions of the county's attorney's office, and the problems with government in general," an arrest report shows.

His proposal had been denied because it did not meet the guidelines of such a unit, officials said.

In the letter, Allston described how he "could use his talents" to make a pipe bomb, complete with the deadliest shrapnel he could find, and put it in the "cheapest briefcase he could find," according to the arrest report.

He would then ride the county administration building's elevator to the sixth floor, where the county attorney's office is located, set down the briefcase, light the fuse and "exit briskly down the stairs."

"It was bizarre stuff," said assistant county attorney John Renner. We took it with the concern that it demanded."

The office informed the State Attorney's Office and the sheriff's office. Deputies interviewed Allston before arresting him at a warehouse he owns at 11543 Charlie's Terrace, South of Fort Myers.

No bomb was recovered Saturday, said sheriff's spokesman Tim Hetz.