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Robert Lintner, 64 (above), posted $2,500 bail and was released on charges of “creating a widespread risk of hazard” after police took him to headquarters for processing shortly before 10 o’clock last night.
The amount of gunpowder was 10 times the legal limit of 30 pounds that can be stored residentially, as well as a public safety hazard “not only for the home itself but for adjacent homes, as well,” Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. “This warrants its removal.”
Borough police and Bergen County Sheriff’s officers later began carrying weapons and ammo from the Washington Street house, just off Rochelle Parkway, in an operation so extensive that they had to apply for a second search warrant after the first expired.
Kugler said the gun collection is so large that police don’t initially know for sure whether all of the weapons are legal.
The weapons were taken for storage and cataloging as required by domestic violence laws.
Surrounding homes were temporarily evacuated after police found and removed the gunpowder when they went to look for the guns. A resident said the evacuations lasted from 4:30 till past 10 p.m.
During the operation, 65-year-old Eileen Lintner posted $75,000 bail and was released on aggravated assault charges — with the condition that she have no contact with her husband.
Police first went to the house at 8:45 a.m. to investigate a report of a domestic violence assault and found that Robert Lintner had been stabbed just below his ear. They took Eileen Lintner into custody and obtained a search warrant.
Investigators found the powder and what Kugler called an “extensive” amount of ammunition after recovering the kitchen knife that they believe was used in the stabbing.
At that point they immediately halted their firearms search and summoned the Bergen County Police Department Bomb Squad. Adjacent homes were briefly evacuated.
Lintner, a known weapons collector, had five gun vaults in the house and and what authorities initially estimated were 100 firearms, including handguns and long rifles, Kugler said.
They found dozens more after firefighters opened the vaults using the Jaws of Life.
Cracking the 6-foot-tall, half-ton safes became necessary when Lintner refused to open the himself, Kugler said.
“It’s better than trying to carry them out,” he told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Authorities will catalog the firearms to determine whether all are legal, the chief said.
TOP: Robert Lintner (MUGSHOT: Courtesy SADDLE BROOK PD), PHOTO: Courtesy SHERYLE ROBERT)
CLIFFVIEW PILOT PHOTOS
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