A St. Paul man who admitted to making a pipe bomb and detonating it on the city’s East Side in June, damaging two vehicles, told a judge at his sentencing he was “thankful that nobody got hurt.”

Christopher William Kulak of St. Paul was sentenced to 360 days in the workhouse and five years of probation Friday in connection with the June 13 incident on York Avenue between Kennard and Hazelwood streets. Kulak, 46, will receive credit for 214 days already served in custody.

Christopher William Kulak (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Kulak told police the bomb was intended for the vehicle of a man he was “livid” with because he “desecrated” his father’s ashes by pouring them onto the ground, according to the criminal complaint charging him with negligently causing an explosive device to be discharged while acting with gross disregard for human life or property. Kulak pleaded guilty to the felony charge in November.

According to the complaint, officers responded to the area just after 1 p.m. and saw burn marks on the asphalt between two vehicles, and found a pipe with a cap on the end. A Ford Ranger had damage to the driver’s side and a Chevrolet Suburban’s rear driver’s side glass panel was shattered.

Video cameras in the area documented a sedan approaching, a male’s arm reaching out the front driver’s side and the vehicle speeding away. Smoke was seen near the driver’s side of the Ranger, and then an explosion.

By enhancing the video, police were able to identify the license plate of the suspect vehicle and learned Kulak was its primary driver.

After police arrested Kulak, he told investigators he’d made and deployed the pipe bomb and that it was intended for the vehicle of a 52-year-old man who he said had broken into his trailer and poured out his father’s ashes. He said he lit the fuse and tossed it near a truck he believed was the man’s, the complaint says.

‘That was reckless’

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Michelle Montero asked Judge Joy Bartscher to give Kulak two years and three months in prison. Montero pointed out that Kulak was on probation for three past offenses at the time of the incident.

Chelsea Reinartz, assistant public defender, said that Kulak, while in custody, had gone through treatment for drug abuse issues and also mental health programming. He was also accepted into residential treatment, Reinartz said.

“I’ve never had a chance to deal with my chemical dependency or my mental health, and see what I’ve done to my family,” Kulak told Bartscher. “And I know what I did was wrong and careless.”

“It was more than careless; that was reckless,” Bartscher said.

“I’m thankful that nobody got hurt,” Kulak said, “and I’d like a chance to be a productive member of society and get treatment for chemical and mental health, so I can be a better husband and father and civilian, and so you won’t have to see me in court anymore.”

Bartscher stayed a nearly four-year prison term for five years, during which time Kulak will be on supervised probation after his jail time. She cited Kulak’s remorse and said he is “particularly amenable to probation at this point” and would be better off with residential treatment programming than what prison would offer in that regard.

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By MIKE STOBBE and JONEL ALECCIA (Associated Press)

Milk from dairy cows in Texas and Kansas has tested positive for bird flu, U.S. officials said Monday.

The illness has been reported in older dairy cows in those states and in New Mexico. The symptoms included decreased lactation and low appetite.

It comes a week after officials in Minnesota announced that goats on a farm where there had been an outbreak of bird flu among poultry were diagnosed with the virus. It’s believed to be the first time bird flu — also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza — was found in U.S. livestock.

The commercial milk supply is safe, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dairies are required to only allow milk from healthy animals to enter the food supply, and milk from the sick animals is being diverted or destroyed. Pasteurization also kills viruses and other bacteria, and the process is required for milk sold through interstate commerce, they said.

“At this stage, there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health,” the USDA said in a statement.

Experts say livestock will recover on their own. That’s different than bird flu outbreaks in poultry, which necessitate killing flocks to get rid of the virus. Since 2022, outbreaks in have led to the loss of about 80 million birds in U.S. commercial flocks.

Based on findings from Texas, officials think the cows got the virus from infected wild birds, the USDA said.

So far, the virus appears to be infecting about 10% of lactating dairy cows in the affected herds, said Michael Payne, a food animal veterinarian and and biosecurity expert with the University of California-Davis Western Institute for Food Safety and Security.

“This doesn’t look anything like the high-path influenza in bird flocks,” he said.

The federal government also said that testing did not detect any changes to the virus that would make it spread more easily to people.

Bird flu was detected in unpasteurized, clinical samples of milk from sick cattle collected from two dairy farms in Kansas and one in Texas. The virus was also found in a nose and throat swab from another dairy in Texas. Symptoms including decreased lactation and low appetite. Officials also reported a detection in New Mexico.

Officials called it a rapidly evolving situation. The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also involved, along with officials in the three states. Another dairy-heavy state, Iowa, said it is monitoring the situation.

Dairy industry officials said that producers have begun enhanced biosecurity efforts on U.S. farms, including limiting the amount of traffic into and out of properties and restricting visits to employees and essential personnel.

Bird flu previously has been reported in 48 different mammal species, Payne noted, adding: “It was probably only a matter of time before avian influenza made its way to ruminants.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A man who lives less than a mile from where authorities say he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 25-year-old woman was charged in the decade-old case this week based on DNA evidence.

Gregory Alan Trepanier, 55, was charged this week in Ramsey County District Court with one felony count of kidnapping and one felony count of attempted first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He was 45 at the time of the assault.

Gregory Alan Trepanier (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

The criminal complaint gave the following details:

On Nov. 23, 2014, a 25-year-old woman went to a Maplewood bar with friends. After the bar closed, the women left and the 25-year-old got into her own vehicle alone. When she began backing out of her parking spot, a man wearing a black ski mask with a red stripe, a black hooded sweatshirt and blue sweatpants opened her passenger side door and got inside her vehicle.

The man ordered her to drive south on White Bear Avenue and directed her to a senior living facility on the 2700 block of Hazelwood Street in Maplewood, where he told her to park. He put a gun on his lap facing the woman and threatened to hurt her if she didn’t comply with his demands.

He told her, “I didn’t pick you for any reason at all,” and apologized several times. At one point, he got out of her vehicle and left on foot.

Detectives were able to gather DNA evidence from the woman’s vehicle.

At the time, the BCA was unable to connect the DNA evidence to a suspect. Recently, however, BCA scientists found a match after running the sample through their database as they routinely do because new DNA profiles are often added to the database. On Feb. 5, the DNA from the kidnapping and assault returned a match to Trepanier, whose DNA had been submitted in a separate case.

A search warrant on Feb. 29, 2024 allowed authorities to collect a  DNA sample from Trepanier. After that, on March 13, the BCA said the match would not occur “more than once among unrelated individuals in the world population.”

Trepanier was convicted of stalking and indecent exposure in October of 2018. In addition he is under investigation in connection with two unsolved kidnappings in the area that also involve the use of a firearm and threats of sexual assault.

He denied being involved in the kidnapping and assault, the complaint stated. Authorities say they consider him a high risk to public safety.

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