BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A Bakersfield man with a prior conviction for making an explosive device has pleaded guilty to federal charges after FBI agents found 50 pounds of dynamite and methamphetamine hidden in a cave.

Matthew Henry Jacober, 44, pleaded guilty Monday to being a felon in possession of explosives and manufacturing crystal meth, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of California.

He faces up to a decade in prison on the explosives charge and 40 years on the meth charge, according to the release. A sentencing hearing is scheduled Feb. 17.

FBI agents served a warrant in July in the 24000 block of Round Mountain Road, where Jacober had parked travel and utility trailers on property near McPherson Oil Company.

A 50-pound box of dynamite and baggies and flasks containing meth were located in a cave behind the trailers, according to court filings.

Jacober had been under surveillance after making posts to YouTube showing him detonating explosives, the filings say. A McPherson employee told agents he’d heard “loud booms” in the area but didn’t know where they were coming from.

Prior incidents

In 2021, Jacober pleaded no contest in Superior Court to making a destructive device without a permit after storing equipment in a utility trailer that tested positive for mustard gas and the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), according to the filings.

In comments posted on YouTube, Jacober claimed to have booby-trapped his and a cousin’s properties with vials containing the gas, filings say.

When interviewed, Jacober told agents he’d tested the mustard gas on his skin, describing it as feeling like “poison oak on steroids.”

Local authorities also have had contact with Jacober.

A sheriff’s lieutenant told FBI agents Jacober was taken to Delano Regional Medical Center in 2016 after a homemade bomb exploded in his hand. He lost three fingers on his right hand, filings say.

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