{"id":265439,"date":"2026-08-14T18:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/265439\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T18:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:10:09","slug":"man-charged-with-throwing-explosive-near-catasauqua-polling-location-accused-of-harassing-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/265439\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged with throwing explosive near Catasauqua polling location accused of harassing neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Catasauqua man accused of throwing an explosive device near a borough polling location during the primary election is now charged with harassing a neighbor who testified at his preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n

Jack Pletz, 24, was arraigned Wednesday on a misdemeanor charge of harassment and multiple summary traffic violations.<\/p>\n

His neighbor testified about the primary election day incident last month during Pletz\u2019s preliminary hearing.<\/a> About a week later, Pletz drove by the neighbor\u2019s house while the neighbor was outside multiple times, and slowed down whenever he got near the home, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

During the last appearance outside the house, Pletz rolled down the window and said \u201cget back in your house,\u201d authorities said. The neighbor told him he was going to call the police, and Pletz drove away, charging documents state.<\/p>\n

He could not tell who was driving, but investigators viewed surveillance footage of that day and determined Pletz was the driver, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Police viewed additional surveillance footage from the neighbor\u2019s home, and found Pletz, whose license is suspended, drove by the house 15 times between July 9 and Aug. 4, according to officials.<\/p>\n

Pletz and his father, Matthew Pletz, 57, are accused of throwing an explosive near the Salem United Church of Christ at 615 Third Street during the primary election in May.<\/a><\/p>\n

State police said the men threw the explosive from a truck, then returned home. Investigators said there is no evidence that the incident was connected to the election. No one was hurt and no damage was reported. Operations at the polling place were also largely un affected.<\/p>\n

Jack Pletz is charged with felonies of possessing weapons of mass destruction and risking catastrophe, as well as misdemeanors of carrying explosives, dealing in offensive weapons and possessing an instrument of crime. He is also charged with prohibited possession of a firearm after a 12-gauge shotgun with no serial number was found inside his home, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Jack Pletz remains free on bail. He did not have an attorney listed for his latest charges Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Catasauqua man accused of throwing an explosive device near a borough polling location during the primary election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,202,182,139,432],"class_list":["post-265439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories-tmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}