Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Additional Iron County threat charges filed against Gollubske

By RALPH ANSAMI

[email protected]

Hurley — Additional threat counts have been filed against an 81-year-old Kimball, Wis., man who has been bound over for trial on a charge of making a terroristic threat at the Marshfield Clinic in Mercer on Aug. 2.

On Tuesday, Robert “Barrel Bob” Gollubske was also charged with threatening to blow up both the Iron County Courthouse in Hurley in 2013 and the Northwoods Paving (Mathy Construction) asphalt plant in Kimball in 2016.

The courthouse threat count was refiled after having been previously dismissed.

Gollubske also faces a charge of making a terroristic threat in Kimball on June 26, 2016, relating to the blacktop plant.

According to the criminal complaint signed by Iron County District Attorney Matt Tingstad, Gollubske told an individual to stay away from the Mathy Construction

pit in Kimball on July Fourth in 2016 because there was going to be an explosion there and he didn’t want to see that person hurt.

An improvised explosive device that was detonated at the same location on July Fourth in 2015 created a huge crater and the blast could be heard and felt as far away as Lake Superior, about 10 miles away as the crow flies.

The criminal complaint issued Tuesday says Robert Gollubske and his son, Matthew Gollubske, are suspects in the 2015 blacktop plant blast, which is still under investigation, with state and federal authorities involved.

Robert Gollubske is alleged to have told Iron County Sheriff’s Department Lt. Paul Samardich on June 29, 2016, that he had “gotten blown up” at his farm from the blacktop plant and he wouldn’t forgive them.

“ISIS is going to come out here... there’s enough blasting powder here already that everything’s going to wind up on U.S. 2. The whole f****** works is going to end up in the middle of the highway... Fourth of July, be there,” Robert Gollubske is alleged to have said.

Robert Gollubske is alleged to have told Samardich he would stop the blast by having damages to his home and his medical bills covered.

“I ain’t going to tell on ISIS,” he’s alleged to have said.

The threat was taken seriously by the sheriff’s department. From July 1-4 of 2016, tactical teams were deployed at night around the Mathy Construction property in anticipation of a second blast.

Regarding the threat in Mercer, Samardich testified at a preliminary hearing that Robert Gollubske had said, “I could blow this place up and get way with it, like the people who blew me up and got away with it.”

Gollubske was previously a patient at the clinic, but was told verbally and in writing that he was no longer welcome there because of his previous behavior.

Iron County Judge Patrick Madden set bond at $10,000 in the Mercer threat case and Gollubske later asked for a substitution of judges.

In threatening to blow up the courthouse, Gollubske said he made the call so Sheriff Tony Furyk would come and visit his residence to discuss damages to his property.

 
 
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