The Harvey's Resort Hotel bombing took place on August 26–27, 1980, when several men masquerading as photocopier deliverers planted an elaborately booby trapped bomb containing of dynamite at Harvey's Resort Hotel (now "Harveys") in Stateline, Nevada, United States. After an attempt to disarm the bomb, it exploded, causing extensive damage to the hotel but no injuries or deaths. The total cost of the damage was estimated to be around $18 million. John Birges Sr. was convicted of having made the bomb with a goal of extorting money from the casino after having lost $750,000 there. He died in prison in 1996, at the age of 74. Background John Birges Sr. was a Hungarian immigrant to Clovis, California. He claimed to later biographers he flew for the German Luftwaffe during World War II, during which time he provided intelligence to the United States. He was captured and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in the Soviet gulag. Eight years into his sentence in the gulag, he was released during a period of mass repatriation of POWs held in the Soviet Union to their home countries and returned to Hungary. From there, he emigrated to the United States. Investigations of Birges's accounts of his life in Europe have not produced any independent evidence of his claims to have flown for the Nazis, spied for the U.S., or been imprisoned in a Soviet gulag. Birges built a successful landscaping business, but his addiction to gambling led to him losing a large amount of money and prompted the bomb plot. His gambling debt and experience with explosives were primary pieces of evidence linking him to the bombing. Bombing As the mastermind behind the bomb, now-former millionaire Birges was attempting to extort $3 million ($ million in ) from the casino, claiming he had lost $750,000 ($ million in ) gambling there. The FBI went to the spot that they believed to be the ransom drop, but Birges was waiting at a different location due to vague directions. No money was paid to Birges. The bomb was cleverly built and virtually tamper-proof. The ransom note stated that the bomb could not be disarmed even by the bomb builder, but if paid $3 million, he would give instructions on which combination of switches would allow the bomb to be moved and remotely detonated. The FBI determined that it would take four men to move it,