A New Jersey hospital marketing director was arrested this week after a bomb threat at the facility led police to discover a cache of weapons and ammunition stashed in an unlocked office closet.
Reuven Alonalayoff, who worked at Hudson Regional Hospital, was taken into custody Sunday at Newark Liberty International Airport with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations.
Alonalayoff, 46, of Elmwood Park, was charged with possession of an assault firearm and two counts of possession of a high capacity magazine.
Lawyer information for him was not immediately available.
His arrest comes weeks after the hospital received a phone call on July 18 that a bomb was in the facility, the Secaucus Police Department said in a news release.
Officers, along with bomb detection canines, swept the hospital. It was a dog that flagged the unlocked closet, according to officials.
“Upon entering the closet, police discovered a large cache of rifles, shotguns and handguns, along with assorted ammunition for the firearms,” police said.
In total, authorities found 11 handguns of various calibers, 27 rifles/shotguns and a high-capacity magazine with 14 rounds, according to authorities. They also located a Kriss Vector .45-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a high-capacity magazine and determined it was an assault rifle, police said.
Authorities learned the bomb threat was a hoax and investigated the arsenal of weapons.
It’s not clear how Alonalayoff got the weapons into the hospital, how long they were stored there or why they were in the office closet. NBC News has reached out to officials for comment on those details as well as Alonalayoff’s status with the hospital.
“The unsecured storage of a large cache of weaponry, especially in this location, certainly creates a risk to public safety,” Police Chief Dennis Miller said. “I commend the efforts and professionalism of all the police personnel involved in this investigation and am thankful this situation was resolved without anyone being harmed.”