A former Arnold Walmart employee is facing several felony charges for allegedly calling 911 five times over a two-day period and saying there were bombs in the Walmart and Target stores in Arnold.
Jorge Alberto Martinez, 22, of St. Louis has been charged with five counts of making a terrorist threat, a class D felony, and may be sentenced to up to 35 years in prison if he is found guilty, according to court records.
Martinez was arrested Feb. 25, and the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged him Feb. 26.
Arnold Police said Martinez used a cell phone Walmart provided him to allegedly call 911 five times on Feb. 21 and Feb. 22.
Cpl. Brett Ackermann said Martinez has denied making the calls.
Ackermann also said Walmart fired Martinez following the arrest.
Martinez allegedly called in a bomb threat at about 3 a.m. Feb. 21 and said a bomb was in Walmart, 2201 Michigan Ave., Arnold Police reported.
Two more bomb threats were called into 911 early Feb. 22 with the first call at about 1 a.m. and a second call at about 6 a.m. Both times the caller said bombs were in Walmart, the report said.
On the evening of Feb. 22, Martinez allegedly called 911 at 9:51 p.m. and said three bombs were in the Target store, 3849 Vogel Road, adding that the bombs would explode in five minutes. Then at 10:12 p.m., he allegedly called 911 and said a bomb was in Walmart, according to the report.
After each of the five calls, the stores were evacuated, and bomb-sniffing dogs from the St. Louis County, Creve Coeur and St. Charles police departments searched the stores. No explosives were found in Walmart or Target, the report said.
Arnold Police dogs are only trained to detect narcotics after the department recently retired its one bomb-sniffing dog, Detective Lt. Jason Valentine said.
Valentine said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents helped with the search at Target.