The wife had to have told the deputies where to look.----------------------
Arsenal Found in Maine Home
By JERRY HARKAVY, Associated Press Writer
BALDWIN, Maine (AP) - Sheriff's deputies found a cache of weapons, including machine guns and bazookas, hidden in a basement when they served a restraining order at a couple's home in this rural town.
William Bloomquist, 43, surrendered at the Cumberland County jail on Wednesday. He was being held on three counts of aggravated assault, allegedly involving his wife.
His lawyer, Robert Andrews, said his client denies all allegations.
[b]Officers found 81 guns, more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition, practice rockets and hand grenades [/b]Tuesday after Katariina Pulkinen, 32, let them into the home so they could serve the restraining order.
[b]``He had created a hidden hatch to the armory,'' Sheriff Mark Dion said. ``You had to pull on the frame of a bookcase and it would open like a door, like in a James Bond movie.''
[/b]
A cord on the back side of the bookcase was attached to a small device and there was a warning label. Dion said that if the device had been detonated, it would make ``a large bang'' but cause no injury.
Authorities said they did not know what he intended to do with the weapons. Andrews said Bloomquist, a 1998 graduate of the [b]University of Maine School of Law, is a federally licensed firearms dealers and works as a legal investigator. [/b]
Maine State Police also determined that Bloomquist was licensed to possess the weapons, said Stephen McCausland of the state Department of Public Safety.
Andrews dismissed authorities' description of Bloomquist's basement as booby-trapped.
``This is sensationalism,'' Andrews said. ``I'm aware of no booby traps.''
Baldwin is about 30 miles northwest of Portland. The couple's home is on a [b]110-acre property.[/b]