Charges dropped against Cary bomb suspect

Left with no evidence after a judge ruled a police search illegal, McHenry County prosecutors Wednesday dismissed felony weapons charges against a Schaumburg man accused of storing a homemade bomb in his estranged wife's Cary home.

The decision leaves Dominic Bender, 28, free of three charges of unlawful use of weapons stemming from the November 2006 discovery of a two-pound bomb and other explosive materials in the home's basement.

The find led authorities to evacuate some of the home's neighbors and prompted Cary school officials to cancel classes for the day at nearby Prairie Hill School.

Bender declined comment, but his attorney said the case against his client was blown out of proportion.

"This was portrayed as though there was some big bomb there, and there wasn't," Dieden said. "These (chemicals) had been there for some time and nothing dangerous happened. The record in this case speaks for itself."

The case against Bender for all intents ended July 23 when Judge Joseph Condon barred evidence from the police search that uncovered the bomb and explosive materials.

That search came just hours after U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Cook County Bomb Squad went into Bender's Schaumburg residence and seized 10 handguns, five rifles, four shotguns and 200 large, homemade firecrackers in a search later ruled unlawful by a Cook County judge.

Because the Schaumburg search was illegal, and the Cary search was a result of it, the Cary search also was illegal, Condon ruled.

Nichole Owens, criminal chief for the McHenry County State's Attorney, said that decision left her office with no choice but to dismiss the charges.

"We had no evidence, so there was no way we could have prevailed at that point," she said.