CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) -- Federal prosecutors in New York say an employee planted a bomb in a Home Depot (HD -0.78%) store last month and tried to extort $2 million from the company.

U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch says Daniel Sheehan, of Deer Park, N.Y., wrote an anonymous letter telling Home Depot his bomb was in the lighting department of the Huntington store. She says police found it, took it away, and detonated it.

She says Sheehan warned he would set off three more bombs at Home Depots on Long Island unless he was paid $2 million. She says he claimed the explosions would close down the stores on the day after Thanksgiving.

Sheehan is charged with attempted extortion. The U.S. attorney's office says he doesn't have a defense lawyer.