Bucks County bombing suspect used PayPal to buy gun parts, chemicals, prosecutors say

David Surman Jr., who prosecutors say was behind a series of explosions in upper Bucks County last spring, has spent the last few months buying things a judge forbade him to own, officials said.

The Quakertown native, 31, used fake names and phony Social Security numbers to purchase chemical compounds, computer parts, and gun components over three months, according to a motion to revoke his bail. Prosecutors contend that those purchases are grounds to jail him on the bombing charges as well as an unrelated child-pornography case.

Surman’s attorney, Paul Lang, denied Monday that his client violated his bail and vowed to “fight these uninformed allegations."

Deputy District Attorney Antonetta Stancu, the lead prosecutor, said in her motion that Surman created PayPal accounts under the names “Dayvid Surmen” and “Dawid Sherman" in order to hide his purchases. One of his online transactions was to buy a set of walkie-talkies with a 16-mile range, a set that allowed him to contact Tina Smith, his girlfriend and co-defendant in the bombing case. Surman had been ordered to cease all contact with her.

Investigators arrested Surman last June, zeroing in on him as the man behind a series of mysterious late-night explosions in rural townships in the northern edge of the county, about an hour north of Philadelphia.

During a search of Surman’s home and the chemical company that he operated, investigators from the FBI, state police, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found four homemade explosives, one 18 inches long.

They allege in court filings that Surman rode shotgun in Smith’s SUV as she sped throughout the winding back roads in the area, lighting fuses on his explosives and throwing them out the car’s window. After his arrest, investigators found a series of notebooks in his home with various rambling messages, one of which featured a cartoon of the two driving away from a mushroom cloud.

Surman was arraigned on charges of manufacturing and possessing weapons of mass destruction and released after posting $500,000 bail, with the condition that he would not contact Smith or possess chemicals and firearms.

While investigators were executing a search warrant on electronic devices seized from Surman’s home, they found caches of child pornography. He was subsequently charged with possessing the pornography, and released after posting a separate $500,000 bail. In that case, the conditions included avoiding electronics that can access the internet.

Stancu said Surman violated that bail condition. He used his new PayPal accounts to purchase chemicals that can be used to build explosives, as well as the “upper receiver and lower parts” of a 9mm Glock handgun. Another purchase of a 3D printer would have allowed Surman to build a fully-working Glock on his own, a “ghost gun” with no serial number or registration, according to her motion.

A trial into Surman’s bombings charges is scheduled to begin in August in county court.