He claimed to later biographers he flew for the Luftwaffe during World War II, during which time he provided intelligence to the United States.

Eight years into his sentence in the gulag, he was released during a period of mass repatriation of POWs held in the Soviet Union to their home countries and returned to Hungary.

Birges built a successful landscaping business, but his addiction to gambling led to him losing a large amount of money and prompted the bomb plot.

[6] Two months before the bombing, in June 1980, a dynamite blast in the area of north Fresno and Clovis destroyed the wooden-truss Dry Creek bridge located at the corner of Shepherd and DeWolf avenues.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) went to the spot that they believed to be the ransom drop, but Birges was waiting at a different location due to vague directions.

[3] The bomb, one of the largest the FBI had ever seen, was loaded with an estimated 1,000 lb (450 kg) of dynamite stolen from a construction site in Fresno, California.

[2] The bomb was delivered to the casino's second floor by two men posing as technicians; witnesses spotted a white van marked with "IBM" on the side.

[9] John Birges' two sons both entered pleas of guilty in 1981 for their roles in the bombing, serving no prison time in exchange for testifying against their father.

[18] In 1996, at the age of 74, Birges died of liver cancer at the Southern Nevada Correctional Center, 16 years and a day after the bombing.