An Onarga man who was in possession of a bomb and subsequently barricaded himself in his mother’s house in April 2025 has been sentenced to five years in federal prison.

James R. Nelson, 40, of Onarga, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Colin Bruce for possession of a bomb.

Following his five-year sentence, Nelson was also sentenced to a three-year term of supervised release.

A federal grand jury returned a single-count indictment against Nelson in July 2025. He pleaded guilty to the charge in October 2025.

At the sentencing hearing, the government played the body camera from an Iroquois County Sheriff’s Office detective who had made a traffic stop of Nelson.

Although the detective advised Nelson that he had a warrant for his arrest on an unrelated charge, Nelson refused to exit the car, forcing the detective to reach into the car in an attempt to remove him.

As the office made this attempt, Nelson reach into his rear seat and pulled out a gray cylindrical device. He told the detective it was a bomb.

After refusing to turn over the weapon to the officer, he instead ran out of the car and sprinted through the residential Onarga neighborhoods with the bomb in his hand.

He eventually ran to his mother’s house, where he barricaded himself for about eight hours as police attempted to get him to surrender.

Police eventually forced their way into an attic where Nelson was hiding. He was then arrested.

Testing of the bomb device revealed it to be a functional bomb.

The statutory penalty for possession of a bomb is up to 10 years, followed by the three years of supervised release.

The Iroquois County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Springfield Field Office, investigated the case.

Assisting in the investigation were the Kankakee County Emergency Response Team and the East Central Illinois Bomb Squad.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Freres represented the United States in the prosecution.