Bucks County bombing suspect released under new bail conditions

David Surman Jr., a suspect in a series of mysterious late-night explosions in rural Bucks County last spring, was freed from jail Thursday, one day after his bail was revoked in a child-pornography case.

Surman, 31, was taken into custody Wednesday morning after County Court Judge Raymond F. McHugh ruled that he had violated a condition of his bail that forbade him from possessing devices that could access the internet. But McHugh ruled the next morning that Surman could be released, and amended the conditions of his $500,000 bail in the case to include wearing an ankle monitor and submitting to random drug tests.

The Quakertown native also promised McHugh that he would not access the internet until his trial in the porn case, scheduled for August.

Deputy District Attorney Antonetta Stancu filed a motion late last week saying PayPal had flagged some of Surman’s accounts for purchasing more than $9,000 worth of chemicals that could be used to manufacture explosives.

Stancu argued that those purchases, as well as others made by the account for gun parts and computer components, violated the terms of the $750,000 bail Surman was given in the bombings case.

But Surman’s mother, Kathy, testified earlier this week that she was the one who made the purchases in the course of running Consolidated Chemicals & Solvents, the company her son founded and is barred from operating as another condition of his bail.

McHugh dismissed most of Stancu’s motion, ruling that Surman’s only violation was the possession of the electronic devices.