US charges man accused of having arsenal in NJ motel room, says he had map of NY’s Fort Drum

US charges man accused of having arsenal in NJ

SOMERVILLE, N.J. — The federal government says a man accused of keeping an arsenal in a New Jersey motel room had a map of the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum base in upstate New York.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Newark on Tuesday charged 43-year-old Lloyd Woodson of Reston, Va., with a weapons offense.

He was already hit Monday with several state weapons charges after his arrest in Branchburg., N.J.

Court papers do not say whether he was believed to be planning an attack on Fort Drum or anywhere else.

Woodson served for a time in the Navy in the 1980s or 90s, but it’s not immediately clear whether he has any connection to the fort.

The government papers say he was convicted of a weapons offense in 1997 in New York.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

SOMERVILLE, N.J. (AP) — A call from a convenience store clerk about a suspicious person led to an arrest and a frightening discovery: The man was wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a loaded assault rifle and four magazines of ammunition.

Back in the man’s motel room, authorities found a grenade launcher, more rifles, a night-vision scope and, ominously, maps of a military facility.

Prosecutors have not said what 43-year-old Lloyd Woodson was doing with the arsenal. The FBI said Woodson did not appear to have any connection to terrorist groups.

But the weapons and the map raised questions about whether the former Navy man may have been planning some kind of attack.

An executive for the Quik Check convenience store chain said the clerk’s call “averted a possible problem at our store and certainly averted a problem somewhere else.”

Mike Murphy, a senior vice president for the company, said prosecutors asked him not to say what raised the worker’s suspicions.

Woodson was jailed on state weapons charges. Somerset County Prosecutor Wayne Forrest would not identify either the military facility or the town shown on the maps, other than to say the community was not in New Jersey. Woodson was arrested more than an hour’s drive from any major military installation.

A judge on Tuesday set bail for Woodson at $75,000, and he appeared in court for an arraignment that lasted only a moment.

Woodson, wearing shackles and a jail jumpsuit, had no lawyer present and spoke only to acknowledge the judge. The prosecutor did not speak and did not take a position on the bail.

Woodson was staying at the Red Mill Inn, a motel along a busy suburban highway that runs through an area with many pharmaceutical companies. It’s unclear whether he was living at the motel, which advertises weekly rates, or just passing through.

Prosecutors said his last known address was Reston, Va. But the New York-born man appears to have a string of former addresses in Brooklyn and Queens, as well as Maryland.

The Navy says he enlisted in 1988, deserted a little over a year later and spent eight years on the run before returning briefly to Navy custody in 1997. He was soon discharged.

In 2008, Woodson’s wife, Tracey Everett, sought a protective order against him in Forestville, Md. In court papers, she said he deserted her and her children months earlier and described a confrontation outside their Forestville home in which “he responded by saying if I did not let him back in I would be sorry.”

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Everett said that she does not believe Woodson was going to hurt her, or that he would hurt anyone.

“He’s just a loner. He just needs psychological counseling,” she said.

Everett said she has not spoken to her estranged husband in more than a year and had tried unsuccessfully to find him to serve divorce papers. She said he kept guns in their townhouse — but only because he was a collector.

“He never put his hands on me,” she said. “He’s not that type of person.”

Shortly before 4 a.m. Monday, an employee at the convenience store near the inn called police to report a man acting suspiciously.

According to court papers, when police arrived, a patrolman saw Woodson acting “extremely nervous” and asked if he was OK.

He responded, “I’m getting some food for my kids,” the papers said. He fled a moment later. Police started canvassing the trailer park next door.

They found him lying in bushes. When they ordered him to show his hands, they said, he ran off again. Two officers tackled him and used pepper spray to subdue him.

Associated Press Writer Matt Barakat in Forestville, Md., contributed to this report.