By FRED CONTRADA

fcontrada@repub.com



NORTHAMPTON - To the prosecution he is a teenager with a frightening amount of explosives who likes to videotape himself setting them off. To his lawyer he is a "wicked smart" kid bent on a career in chemistry. The jury will have to decide what to do with John E. Robison.



A Hampshire Superior Court jury heard opening statements Friday in the trial of the South Hadley teenager. Robison, 18, is charged with three counts of malicious explosion and one count of setting off detonating explosives near people or property. According to Northwestern Assistant District Attorney Alice E. Perry, Robison videotaped several of the explosions and posted them on You Tube.



As Perry laid out her case to the jury, Robison's activities were discovered in February 2008 when he attempted to buy laboratory equipment on-line. The vendor, suspicious of the order, found the You Tube videos of Robison setting of explosives and contacted the South Hadley police.



After viewing the videos, police approached Robison at Holyoke Community College, where he was taking classes. He told the officers that he had a chemical lab at his father's house in Amherst but moved it to his mother's home in South Hadley at his father's request. Robison's parents are divorced.



When police went to Robison's South Hadley home at 23 Dartmouth St., they found a number of explosive chemicals, including some classified as "high explosives," Perry said. Uncertain how to handle the material, the police contacted the FBI, which advised them on how to handle the explosives. It took police three days to clear Robison's house, Perry said. During that time they had to evacuate neighbors in the abutting homes.



According to Perry, one of the substances, triacetone triperoxide, is so volatile it can be set of by static electricity.



"One gram of TATP in the cap of your Sharpie can blow of your hand," she said. "This is not about firecrackers."



Defense lawyer David P. Hoose told the jury his client is a normal teenager who did gymnastics and spent years as a Cub Scout and Boy Scout.



"This case is very much about who John Robison is," he said.



According to Hoose, Robison is an intelligent young man who dropped out of Amherst Regional High School in 11th grade because the curriculum wasn't challenging enough for him.



"Public school bored him," Hoose said. "Our kids might call him 'wicked smart.'"



Robison developed an interest in model rockets that led to a passion for chemistry, Hoose said. He hopes to eventually earn a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Massachusetts. During visits to Mexico with his mother, who is an anthropologist, Robison was exposed to firecrackers, which are legal in that country.



"He came back and started experimenting," Hoose said.



According to Hoose, all the chemicals Robison had can be legally obtained. He said the videotapes will show that his client was careful to detonate his explosives at the Amherst landfill or on his father's property, where they would not harm property or people.



"He was making things go 'boom' and learning from experience," Hoose said. "My client had no anti-government aims."



The trial is scheduled to continue through next week.



