ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A father and son accused of setting off an explosive device near an Election Day polling place were back in Lehigh County Court Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In May, Matthew Pletz, 57, and his son Jack Pletz, 24, allegedly threw an explosive device from a vehicle that detonated near Salem United Church of Christ in Catasauqua as residents were voting there in the primary election.<\/p>\n
No one was injured, according to state police. Authorities have not indicated that the explosive devices were connected to the election.<\/p>\n
Police said 17 additional homemade explosive devices were found in their truck.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ad8e677c1201.image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Matthew Pletz and his son, Jack Pletz, are facing multiple felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from an alleged explosive device incident near a Lehigh County polling place in May.<\/p>\n
Courtesy<\/p>\n
\nCopyright 2026 Maranatha Broadcasting Co., Inc.. All Rights Reserved.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The father and son are facing multiple felony and misdemeanor charges for the incident.<\/p>\n
Last month, Jack Pletz appeared in court and entered a not-guilty plea. His father, who is in custody, waived his appearance and did not attend the hearing.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday at the courthouse, Jack Pletz’s attorney brought up what he said was a potential conflict of interest. He said someone he was previously involved with on a separate case could be called to the stand as a witness in this case.<\/p>\n
The attorney said this concern did not conflict with Wednesday’s appearance at all. The judge said Jack Pletz will have to get a new attorney.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors submitted a transcript to the judge Wednesday which he will have to go through.<\/p>\n
Jack Pletz is out on bail. He has also been charged separately in connection with allegations that he harassed a neighbor who testified against him during a recent court hearing.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, his father Matthew remains incarcerated. The two are due back in court in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A father and son accused of setting off an explosive device near an Election Day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,8469,449,5497,34221,71371,433],"class_list":["post-311320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-catasauqua","tag-court","tag-election-day","tag-explosive-device","tag-father-and-son","tag-lehigh-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311320","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=311320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}