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Man angry with Ridge arrested on gun charges

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal authorities have arrested a Pennsylvania man and seized six firearms from his home after he complained about Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and threatened to "go to war" against people who had not treated him fairly, according to a Secret Service affidavit.

Douglas B. Leuschen, 52, of Strattanville, Pennsylvania, was charged last week under a law prohibiting felons from owning firearms, and authorities said they are considering additional charges.

Leuschen has a decade-old grievance against Ridge -- who was a congressman and Pennsylvania governor -- and others whom Leuschen believes responsible for the loss of his gymnastics school or who were unresponsive to his pleas for help, according to the Secret Service affidavit.

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In recent years, Leuschen repeatedly has protested his treatment by the government and has espoused his right to use deadly force against anyone who stood in his way or aggrieved him, the affidavit says.

In an interview last year, Leuschen told Secret Service investigators his problems began in 1992 when he went to Ridge's congressional office to seek assistance in a dispute with an insurance company, the affidavit said. Leuschen said Ridge and his staff conspired to deprive him of his constitutional rights and may have conspired against him in a workmen's disability case, it said.

On July 9, Leuschen visited Clarion County, Pennsylvania, Sheriff William H. Peck III, saying that Ridge was involved in a conspiracy against him and that he had no other option "but to take his gun and go to war against the people who caused him such injustice," according to the Secret Service affidavit.

A week later, federal officials searched Leuschen's home and confiscated four rifles, a 12-gauge shotgun, a semiautomatic pistol and various ammunition, according to court records. He was charged Tuesday and is being held without bond at the Allegheny County Jail.

Leuschen is charged with weapons violations, but "we are considering the statements that he made with respect to Gov. Ridge and deciding whether it's appropriate to file additional charges," said Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Leuschen has several convictions on his record, Buchanan said. Among them is a 1990 conviction for recklessly endangering another person after he pointed a handgun at a motorist during a February 1989 traffic dispute.

In November 1997, he was charged with making terroristic threats after allegedly threatening to shoot a workers' compensation judge, but the charge was dropped after he promised not to have any contact with the judge.