MUNCIE, Ind. — A Delaware County man has been sentenced to 8 years behind bars after he pled guilty this week to possessing an explosive in a Nov. 2021 incident where police found three homemade grenades in the basement of a Muncie residence.

Giovanni Rembert, 30, was arrested by Muncie police officers on the afternoon of Nov. 5, 2021, after a suspicious package was reported in the basement of a home in the 3300 block of W. Noel Drive.

A tenant at the residence had called 911 after finding a backpack with three possible explosives inside. The tenant described the devices as aerosol cans with holes poked in the bottom that were attached to a piece of cardboard and a fuse.

Both Muncie police and county bomb squad units responded to the scene, rendered the explosives safe and transported the devices to a remote location. There was also a thorough search conducted on the home.

Officers found Rembert, a Muncie resident, at the scene. There, officers said the man admitted that the explosives were his and that he had made them a long time ago.

Rembert was then taken to police headquarters for an interview. There, officers said the suspect again admitted that he made the devices and described them as “makeshift anarchist’s cookbook grenades.”

“Giovanni Rembert stated that he made the devices to use for self-defense and his goal was to kill someone before they were able to kill him,” court docs show. “[He said] he believes he has several family members that are possibly trying to harm him.

“Rembert also stated that he constructed the devices as he did because he thought ‘shrapnel and bullets would have went everywhere’ if he ignited one.”

After the interview, Rembert was arrested on three counts of felony possession of a destructive device and taken to the Delaware County Jail.

On Thursday, Rembert pleaded guilty in Delaware County court to one of those three charges and as a result the other two charges were dismissed. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years, 2 of which will be suspended and served as probation out of prison.

While awaiting sentencing, online records show Rembert had accumulated 664 days of jail credit and was given an additional 221 days of good time credit.