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A report by an oversight committee denying 65-year-old Robert Lintner entry to the Pre-Trial Intervention Program is full of “hyperbolic hysteria” that includes a comment that the guns are “designed for nothing other than killing on a large scale,” defense attorney Evan Nappen told a judge in Hackensack.
Robert Lintner, defense attorney Evan Nappen (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)
That, he said, is “flat-out wrong.”
All of Lintner’s weapons are more than 60 years old, of World War II vintage and inoperable, Nappen said, as he client stood next to him supported by a walker.
The guns originally belonged to Lintner’s father, the attorney said.
One of them, a vintage M-1 carbine, was ruled a “legitimate target shooting firearm” by then-state Attorney General Robert Del Tufo, ”when the original assault firearms legislation was proposed,” he said.
A 10-count indictment returned by a grand jury in October charges Lintner with “creating risk of widespread injury or damage by recklesslessly handling or storing” 300 pounds of gunpowder in his 1,400-square-foot home.
The amount of powder was 10 times the legal limit that can be stored residentially, as well as a public safety hazard “not only for the home itself but for adjacent homes,” Saddle Brook Police Chief Robert Kugler told CLIFFVIEW PILOT following Lintner’s August arrest.
Authorities took 200 firearms from the home for storage and cataloging, as required by domestic violence laws.
Surrounding homes also were temporarily evacuated after police found and removed the gunpowder when they went to collect the guns.
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.
She has not been able to return to the house, authorities told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Her husband, meanwhile, has remained free on $2,500 bail.
Police first went to the house the morning of Aug. 7 on a domestic violence call and found Robert Lintner stabbed just below his ear. They took his wife into custody and obtained a search warrant.
Investigators found the powder and what Kugler, the police chief, 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 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 at the time.
Superior Court Judge James J. Guida said yesterday that he will review briefs from both sides and rule on Lintner’s appeal by March 9.
Robert Lintner, defense attorney Evan Nappen (STORY / PHOTOS: CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter Mary K. Miraglia)
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