John Birges

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John Birges Sr. (1919-1996), was a Hungarian immigrant from Clovis, California who was convicted of planting a 1,200 pound bomb on August 26, 1980 in then named Harvey's Resort Hotel at Stateline, Nevada. Heavily in debt, he demanded $3,000,000. (Birges had lost at least $750,000 and possibly a million or more at Harveys). Hungarian born, Birges flew in the German Luftwaffe during WW2. He was captured and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in a Russian gulag. Eight years into his sentence he escaped by blowing it up. This bombing was a primary piece of evidence linking him to the Lake Tahoe bombing.

He built one of the largest bombs the FBI had ever seen from dynamite he had stolen in Fresno. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. He died of liver cancer in 1996 at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center.