A special effects coordinator is facing years on probation for having explosive materials on a Georgia movie set.
Robert Christopher Bailey, 51, of Los Angeles, California, got 30 months of probation, according to a press release from the Department of Justice U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of Georgia, issued Tuesday (March 9).
Bailey pleaded guilty to possession of explosive materials as a prohibited person.
U.S. District Court Judge R. Stan Baker sentenced Bailey to more than two years of probation, and ordered him to pay a $5,500 fine, according to David H. Estes, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.
“The film industry is a robust and growing part of the economy in Savannah and in Georgia, and we welcome those who come to the state to work in movie production,” Estes said in the release. “However, we will fully enforce the law so that dangerous explosives are not in the hands of those who are prohibited from handling them.”
Bailey served as a special effects and pyrotechnics coordinator on the set of The Poison Rose, starring John Travolta and Morgan Freeman.
Crews were filming in Savannah on July 9, 2018. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigated and found that Bailey shouldn’t have possessed the explosive materials at that time because of a previous conviction, the release states.
“ATF is tasked with regulating the explosives industry and to promote public safety in the Southern District of Georgia,” said Beau Kolodka, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta Field Division of the ATF. “The defendant had no business possessing explosives, given his previous criminal conduct.”
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