Ex-High School Security Guard Gets Prison Time for Selling Explosives, Allegedly Alongside Teen: Prosecutors

Federal agents allege they recovered nearly 1,000 lbs. of uncontained explosives and explosive materials from the homes of the security guard and student

<p>Google Maps</p> Angelo Jackson Mendiver, 27, previously worked as a campus security supervisor at Arvin High School in Arvin, Calif.

Google Maps

Angelo Jackson Mendiver, 27, previously worked as a campus security supervisor at Arvin High School in Arvin, Calif.

A former high school security guard who allegedly worked with a high schooler to sell explosives on Instagram has just been sentenced to two years in federal prison.

Angelo Jackson Mendiver, 27, pleaded guilty to conspiring to engage in the manufacturing and dealing in explosive materials and for mailing explosive devices and to making false statements to FBI agents, according to a press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Eastern District of California and underlying court records.

Mendiver, who had worked as a campus security supervisor at Arvin High School in Arvin, Calif., “worked closely” with an East Bakersfield High School student “to fulfill transactions and send explosives in the mail to residents of other states,” according to prosecutors. (Both schools are part of Kern High School District, where he had been a longtime employee, according to a sentencing proposal submitted by his defense lawyer and obtained by PEOPLE.)

Federal investigators learned about the explosives on August 13, 2022, after a postal employee “observed what appeared to be improvised explosive devices inside a package that had been inadvertently opened,” according to the redacted criminal complaint obtained by PEOPLE.

Later that day, a special agent bomb technician “identified 62 improvised explosive devices contained within the package,” per the complaint, which notes that the devices were about six inches long. Remotely cutting into one of the devices, investigators determined it contained about 70 grams of energetic material.

Based on an interview with one of Mendiver’s alleged buyers, such devices sold for $10 each, per the complaint.

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A few months later, investigators allegedly traced “an apparent explosive device placed in a women’s bathroom at" a Newark, N.J., airport back to Pyro Direct, a company that sold components used to make improvised explosive devices that was connected to Mendiver, per the complaint.

The company had allegedly sold components used in the device recovered from the airport to eight customers, including the high school student identified in the complaint as M.M.

In Instagram messages cited in the redacted complaint and further contextualized by federal prosecutors in the press release, Mendiver sent M.M. two videos of homemade explosive devices, telling him: “I made both of these." Then, responding to the teen’s exclamations, Mendiver added: “homemade kills all consumer.”

In another message, prosecutors say he warned the teen: “super careful bro that homemade s--- is dangerous.”

Federal agents seized 536 lbs. of uncontained explosives and explosive materials during a June 2023 search of Mendiver’s residence, according to prosecutors, who said in the press release that they “presented an extreme safety hazard to the residents.”

Investigators allegedly recovered another 440 lbs. of uncontained explosives and explosive materials from M.M.’s home., per prosecutors, who say that agents also found items used to make the explosives at both residences.

Mendiver, who had worked for the school district on and off since graduating early from high school in 2014, had started working in the maintenance operations department and eventually worked as a security guard for the school district, as well as at Arvin High School, according to a September sentencing memorandum submitted by his lawyer requesting a lower sentence.

His lawyer, Monica Bermudez, did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment, but wrote in her sentencing proposal that Mendiver was committed to his “sobriety and rehabilitation” and that after losing his job at the school, had found other “steady employment” and has “remained marijuana free for the first time since he was 16 years old.”

A spokeswoman for Kern High School District – which includes Arvin High School – did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment about their former employee.

But in a letter of support, included by his lawyer in his proposed sentencing memorandum, Katy Perez, the Dean of Student Behavior and Supports with the Kern High School District in Bakersfield, Calif., praised Mendiver’s “work ethic, temperament and personality.”

Federal prosecutors said that the Kern County District Attorney’s Office is handling the teen’s case.

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