The Pikesville man charged with hoarding guns and explosives is free from jail just two weeks after a Baltimore County judge worried he would “blow up the neighborhood.”
Frederick Mackler ? the man accused of shooting fireworks from his fourth-floor condominium window, startling neighbors with deafening blasts and blinding flashes for more than two years ? was released on $250,000 bail Friday, prosecutors said.
Judge Robert Cahill ordered Mackler, 59, to detention at his brother?s Owings Mills home against the urges of prosecutors who said he remains a threat to the community.
“There is a concern for public safety as well as a concern he will flee,” said Kristin Blumer, assistant state?s attorney.
“Obviously, the concerns I stated before still apply.”
Cahill?s decision to release Mackler comes two weeks after Judge Norman Stone revoked an initial bail set at $1 million.
Stone ticked off a laundry list of contraband police discovered in Mackler?s Stevenson Commons condominium in an April 28 raid: One dozen handguns, a rifle, two shotguns, an Uzi submachine gun, cocaine, marijuana and pyrotechnics.
Baltimore County police began investigating in September 2007 after Stevenson Commons residents complained of mysterious explosions in the middle of the night.
They eventually installed security cameras and called in the bomb squad, which pinpointed the blasts to Mackler?s condominium in the 8000 block of Brynmor Court.
Blumer said at a hearing earlier this month that Mackler admitted to police he was “mad at his neighbors.”
Cahill ordered Mackler to stay at least five miles from Stevenson Commons, to turn in all firearms and his passport and begin psychiatric treatment.
Mackler is to check in daily with a probation officer on the phone and leave only for legal and medical appointments.
His attorneys, who did not return a call for comment Monday, said at a hearing earlier this month that Mackler ischronically depressed and was self-medicating.
Reached at his Owings Mills home Monday, Mackler?s brother, Steven, said Frederick is seeking unspecified treatment.
“Hopefully, he?s getting better,” Steven Mackler said.
