Man allegedly built dungeon in old house

TORONTO, Feb. 15 (UPI) -- A Canadian man was formally charged Tuesday with breaking into an abandoned farmhouse near Toronto and installing a dungeon there.

Robert Edwin White, 44, of Oshawa, Ontario, was being held pending a bail hearing Wednesday, The Globe and Mail of Toronto reported. He was charged with breaking and entering with intent to commit a crime.

Contractors discovered the dungeon, or confinement room, in the basement of the old farmhouse in November, about a year after the building was last inspected. It is on a property that Transport Canada plans to develop into an airport.

Officials in Pickering, a suburb north of Toronto, had been trying to find someplace to move the farmhouse, which was considered historic. The house burned down in January in a fire that is considered suspicious.

Police have not released specific details of what White may have been planning for the dungeon.

"The intent is that, perhaps, there was a plan to bring someone there," Sgt. Nancy van Rooy said.