A man has pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct charge arising from an explosive gender reveal party in New Hampshire and Massachusetts that was heard by nearby residents. Anthony Spinelli was convicted and fined $620 as part of a plea agreement made Tuesday.
In April, police in Kingston, a town on the Massachusetts border, received reports of a loud explosion. They were called to a quarry where folks admitted to throwing a gender reveal party complete with explosives. It was unclear whether Spinelli hired a lawyer to represent him.
Man charged with disorderly conduct after gender reveal party
At the time of the party in April, residents in two northeastern US states informed local media that they heard an explosion. The abrupt and loud boom shocked residents in Kingston, New Hampshire, near the quarry where the party was held, according to Manchester-based WMUR-TV. Others in neighboring Plaistow told the station that the boom was powerful enough to knock down portraits on their walls.
Several residents in Massachusetts also heard the blast. According to Newsweek, no one was wounded as a result of the explosion. A man named Anthony Spinelli of Kingston pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct on Tuesday.
When Newsweek called the Kingston Police Department, they confirmed Spinelli's identification. Spinelli was fined $620 in addition to the disorderly conduct conviction with the majority of that amount suspended for a year depending on Spinelli's behavior.
The charge brought against Spinelli was deemed "reasonable" by Kingston police, according to a statement shared with Newsweek. Video recorded by a home's doorbell camera near the gender reveal party at the moment of the spring explosion shows the building slightly trembling from the blast's impact. In the recorded clip, the sound of the explosion could also be heard in the background.
When Anthony Spinelli planned to blow up over 85 pounds of Tannerite and blue chalk to disclose the gender of his unborn child, he had no idea it would shock people 30 miles away and get international attention.
Spinelli obtained permission to conduct the now-infamous gender reveal party in a huge quarry at Torromeo Industries at Kingston because he believed it would be a safe location. The explosion site was encircled by 100-foot-high granite walls in a 1,300-foot-wide "bowl," according to Spinelli.
Several gender reveals gone horribly wrong
Spinelli claimed he was startled to discover that the sound went that far because the boom didn't appear large enough to make such a commotion in his first interview since the explosion on April 20. When the news of the explosion made national and international headlines, Spinelli was taken aback.
According to New Hampshire Union Leader, Tannerite is a kind of binary explosive that is frequently used in target practice. It is possible to acquire it without a permit. Spinelli has used Tannerite before and believes the 85 pounds will be "about adequate" for the event.
Some neighbors were enraged, while others were terrified, believing they had felt an earthquake and that their homes had been damaged. According to Spinelli, the quarry's bowl form created a "speaker box effect," causing the sound to echo.
Per The Independent, similar gender reveal stunts have reportedly gone wrong in the past, resulting in fatalities and even wildfires. An expecting father in New York sadly died in February after attempting to make an explosive prop for a gender reveal party that unintentionally exploded. A "smoke-generating pyrotechnic device" meant for a similar revelation sparked a wildfire in Southern California in September 2020, destroying acres of land.
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