Homeland security

Homeland Security employee caught with gun, knife arrested

Authorities arrested a Department of Homeland Security employee Friday for charges related to walking into his agency's Washington headquarters with a gun, a knife, an infrared camera, pepper spray and handcuffs last month.

Federal government analyst Jonathan Leigh Wienke is charged with illegally building a silencer on an unregistered pistol and having materials to build more silencers, according to the seven-count grand jury indictment unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Martinsburg. The charges carry up to a 10-year prison term.

Wienke, a 45-year-old federal employee with top-secret clearance, was arrested Friday in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Ashley Lough, a spokeswoman with the U.S. attorney's office in northern West Virginia, said the arrest was related to a search warrant last month on Wienke's house in Martinsburg, West Virginia, about a 75-mile commute to the Washington office.