Belleville man jailed on charges of threatening to blow up city hall, county courthouse

An 80-year-old Belleville man remains in St. Clair County Jail on a $1 million bond for allegedly threatening to blow up the St. Clair County Courthouse and Belleville City Hall with dynamite last month.

The same man, Stewart R. Lannert, pleaded guilty last year to threatening the Belleville News-Democrat in 2020.

State’s Attorney James Gomric’s office filed the recent criminal complaint on March 17, charging Lannert with making a terrorist threat, a Class X felony. The complaint doesn’t address motive, other than stating that Lannert intended to “intimidate or coerce a significant portion of the civilian population.”

“He through a series of phone calls to (Belleville police dispatch), knowingly threatened to commit a terrorist act, in that he threatened to blow up the Courthouse or City Hall with dynamite, and thereby caused a fear of the imminent commission of a terrorist act,” it reads.

The calls were made between March 14 and 15, according to the complaint.

“(Lannert) was arrested in the lobby of Belleville Police Department without incident by Belleville detectives,” Assistant Chief Mark Heffernan said.

St. Clair County Associate Circuit Judge Jeff Watson set Lannert’s bail at $1 million. As of Friday, Lannert hadn’t paid the $100,000 (10%) required to be released from custody.

Lannert’s attorney, Eric Rhein, didn’t respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Lannert has been calling the BND and submitting letters to the editor regularly since the 1990s, mostly criticizing “liberals” and Democratic politicians. He also expresses his opinions through large signs in his yard in the 300 block of South 29th Street in Belleville.

Some of his current signs read, “Trump vs. Biden + FBI + DOJ,” “Democrats are racist,” “Durbin no free speech Nazi,” “Clarence Thomas for president,” “Illinois land of sheep,” Democrat Mayor Kern in charge,” “J.B. Pritzker sucks” and “Black people, it’s okay to leave the plantation.”

Lannert also has a scrap-metal cross, Confederate flag and homemade cannon in his yard.

Upset about vandalism

A man that police determined to be Lannert called the BND office on Oct. 16, 2020, and left a message complaining that people had vandalized his yard signs supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, thrown rocks at his window and torn an American flag off his car.

Lannert also complained that the BND and other newspapers were biased against Trump and in favor of his opponent, now President Joe Biden, and that the BND had declined to publish some of his letters.

“Well, anyway, I’m wondering what I should do with all this stockpile of fertilizer and dynamite I got in my basement,” he stated in the message. “I don’t know what I should do with it yet, maybe blow up the doggone News-Democrat ‘cause they’re so biased against Trump.”

The BND later received an envelope postmarked Oct. 17, 2020, with a hand-printed letter from Lannert that again referred to unfair coverage of Trump by the news media and the BND’s failure to publish three of his letters.

The Oct. 17 letter ended with the following: “when I worked at Coal Mine They used tons of Amornia (sic) Nitrate and I saved some To Fertilize my Garden or put To Good Use Someway.”

Belleville police reported at the time that detectives had searched Lannert’s home and concluded that he wouldn’t have been able to carry out the threat.

Gomric’s office charged Lannert with falsely making a terrorist threat, a Class 1 felony; harassment by telephone, a Class B misdemeanor; and disorderly conduct, a Class C misdemeanor. A judge set his bond at $75,000.

Plea leads to probation

Also in 2020, Lannert was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, a Class 4 felony, for allegedly speeding toward pedestrians in his truck in downtown Belleville. A group of mothers maintained that he also yelled racial slurs at their young daughters, who were involved in a photo shoot.

“The police came, and they knew exactly who we were talking about,” one of the mothers said, noting Lannert had a distinctive truck covered with Donald Trump and other bumper stickers.

When asked Friday if Lannert was well-known among Belleville police, Heffernan said, “I’ll let his criminal record speak for itself.”

In May of last year, all pending charges against Lannert were considered on one day. As part of a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to the three charges resulting from the BND threat, as well as a 2017 misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed firearm in an alcohol establishment.

The two aggravated-assault charges related to the photo shoot were dismissed, along with two misdemeanor charges of criminal trespass to a building from 2017 and 2020.

Lannert was sentenced to 30 months of probation and 30 hours of community service and required to pay fines and court costs. By August, he had violated his probation agreement, causing it to be revoked, according to court records. His next hearing is set for April 28.

Previously, Lannert had pleaded guilty or been found guilty of three misdemeanors in St. Clair County, including disregarding a traffic-control device in 2011, harassment by telephone in 2010 and being under the influence of drugs or alcohol as a pedestrian in 2007.