SAN DIEGO -- A federal grand jury in San Diego Wednesday handed up a five-count indictment charging an Encinitas man and apparent animal-rights activist with making bomb threats to the University of California, San Diego, where he was working at the time.

Richard Sills Jr., 54, is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on three counts of providing false information and hoaxes and two counts of making bomb threats by telephone.

The indictment charges that Sills -- a temporary employee in the UCSD Biomedical Science Building -- placed two calls and sent a letter to the university to warn of a bomb attack last Dec. 5.

"You need to take this very seriously ... there is a bomb in Leichtag (Building)," Sills allegedly said in one call.

The indictment alleges that in a second call, Sills said, "Take this very seriously, there is a bomb in the Leichtag Building, take this very seriously."

The indictment further alleges that Sills sent a letter to the UCSD Police Department stating that remote-controlled explosive devices had been placed in six campus buildings and that the devices would be detonated unless animals from campus research facilities were released.

A bogus device was found the morning of Dec. 5 at the Leichtag Family Foundation Biomedical Research Building.

Another man who had recently been fired from the university, Timothy Kalka, was originally arrested in the bomb hoax, but charges against him were dismissed.