Full of black powder, a can the size of a coffee tin wrapped in duct tape and glued-on nails was inside of Nathaniel James McGuire’s backpack the day he was arrested on terrorism charges in Santa Maria, according to law enforcement.
On Sept. 25, 2024, McGuire allegedly threw his backpack into Santa Maria Superior Court’s front lobby and yelled, “Liberty or death!” The bag with McGuire’s homemade bomb exploded and injured at least five people, court documents state. He was detained and arrested outside of the courthouse.
While McGuire’s trial date is set for Sept. 22 this year in federal court, his defense attorney recently asked that the U.S. Probation Office issue a pre-plea investigation.
“I believe it is prudent to request a pre-plea investigation, … in order to obtain [the Probation Office’s] opinion as to its calculation of defendant’s criminal history,” Santa Monica-based attorney Katherine McBroom stated in court docs, “so that I may properly advise my client as to his potential exposure to prison time.”
U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal granted McBroom’s request on April 20. Bernal ordered the Probation Office to provide McBroom with its pre-plea investigation report as soon as possible.
April 20 also marked McBroom’s withdrawal of a motion to dismiss one of the three criminal counts McGuire is charged with: a count alleging that he knowingly possessed unregistered destructive devices, including 10 Molotov cocktails discovered inside of McGuire’s vehicle by law enforcement after he was detained, and his improvised explosive.
Along with the Molotov cocktails and an additional explosive, law enforcement said officers also found a shotgun, a lever-action rifle, a box of fireworks, and a bong inside of McGuire’s Ford Mustang.
McGuire also faces felony counts that include use of a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of a building using an explosive.
“McGuire yelled that the government had taken his guns and that everyone needed to fight, rise up, and rebel,” FBI Special Agent Cody Crutchley wrote in court docs based on testimony from Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s deputies who witnessed the explosion.
Crutchley is part of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, assigned to investigate criminal violations related to international and domestic terrorism, he stated.
Based on info from one of law enforcement’s recorded, Mirandized interviews with McGuire, he admitted that he arrived at Santa Maria Superior Court that day “with the intention to kill the deputies working at the security desk.”
After throwing the bomb, McGuire intended to “go back to his car—a red Ford Mustang—to get a shotgun, a lever-action rifle, and Molotov cocktails [and] then intended to reenter the courthouse to kill a judge,” according to Crutchley’s summary.
McGuire’s trial start date was postponed from last September to this April, and postponed again to Sept. 22, following requested continuances from McGuire’s defense that showed “good cause,” according to Judge Bernal.
“Failure to grant the continuance would be likely to make a continuation of the proceeding impossible, or result in a miscarriage of justice,” Bernal stated in court docs, “[and] would deny defense counsel the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation, taking into account the exercise of due diligence.”
This article appears in May 7 – May 14, 2026.