The St. Paul police bomb squad carefully detonated the first suspected pipe bomb, only to find no explosives -- just crystals of methamphetamine -- inside the twisted pipe.
Officers were executing a search warrant in South St. Paul on June 10 when they found the segment of pipe with caps on both ends. When they found an even bigger suspected pipe bomb at the same residence, the experts managed to safely get it apart.
This time, they recovered 147 grams of meth from inside of that second lookalike "pipe bomb."
They were acting on a tip that a resident of the house on Evans Avenue S., Armando Q. Reyes, was known to keep drugs in such containers.
Reyes was supposed to be on trial for first-degree meth sales on June 14 in Dakota County District Court in a different drug case.
Authorities allege that Reyes, 38, of South St. Paul, fell back into his old ways while out on $40,000 bail for a July 2010 drug bust for first-degree drug possession.
Recent searches of his South St. Paul home and, simultaneously, of another house where Reyes had previously been, on Baker Street in St. Paul, turned up a large amount of drugs, cash and weapons, court documents say.
Now, Reyes faces a new felony count of possessing 25 or more grams of meth, according to a complaint in Dakota County District Court. He'll be tried this fall for that and his previous drug charge.
