Van driver gets 34 months for inaugural threat

updated 4:00 p.m. ET July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - A man who threatened to blow up his van in front of the White House two days before President Bush’s inauguration drew a 34-month prison term Wednesday from a judge who ordered him to stay away from the nation’s capital, even after he’s released.

Lowell Timmers, 45, received the sentence from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who ordered the Cedars Springs, Mich. man not to set foot in Washington for three years after he gets out of prison and to pay the costs of his electronic monitoring during that time.

In the Jan. 18 incident, Timmers’ threat to blow up his van unless his son-in-law was released from jail brought traffic near the White House to a stop for four hours as authorities were preparing for Bush’s second-term inauguration. Police later found six glass jars and two tins of gasoline in Timmers’ van.

At his sentencing, Timmers said he was speaking only “philosophically” last month when he refused to rule out committing a similar act in the future. “I absolutely have no intention of doing anything like this again,” Timmers said Wednesday.

“You wreaked a lot of havoc,” Sullivan told him. “If you come back to the city any time during your supervised release, I am going to make sure you never set foot outside a federal prison again. That is a promise. It’s not about possibilities. That is a certainty.”

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