JOHNSTON COUNTY, N.C. — A federal grand jury has indicted a former Ku Klux Klan leader Thursday on federal explosives charges.

Authorities arrested Charles Barefoot Jr., a former grand dragon of the North Carolina chapter of The National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, in July 2002 after allegedly finding stolen weapons inside his car when it was stopped on a vehicle charge.

At Barefoot's home near Benson, investigators said they seized an arsenal of weapons, as well as an explosive gel found inside his freezer.

The Johnston County Sheriff's Office said Barefoot may have been responsible for threats to blow up the Johnston County Sheriff's Office, the sheriff, the county jail and the courthouse.

Barefoot is being held in Central Prison in Raleigh. He is one of four people accused of killing Lawrence Arthur Pettit, whose decomposed body was found in a field near Clinton in 2003.