Police Say Area Man Threatened to Blow Up Building

A Middletown man has gotten himself in hot water.

The Times Herald Record is reporting that 51 year-old Richard Ryder was charged with threatening to blow up the building housing the City of Newburgh’s Social Security Administration office on Tuesday morning.

Police say that Ryder was arrested by the Middletown Police Department and accused of calling the Social Security office, saying he was “going to blow the building up”.

A brief evacuation of the building was ordered by police. A search of the area failed to turn up a bomb or any sort of explosive device. It is uncertain, as of now, what the dispute may have been about.

Ryder was charged with second-degree falsely reporting an incident, felony.