Unabomber Prosecutors Are Named Still No Decision On Charges Or Where Case Will Be Tried

The No. 2 prosecutor in the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office was named Thursday to lead the Unabomber “suspect team,” but Justice Department officials emphasized this did not signal that the case will be tried there.

In picking Robert J. Cleary, 40, Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick chose a veteran prosecutor known for his handling of complex white-collar crime cases in Manhattan before becoming first assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey in 1994.

The six-man team also includes Stephen P. Freccero, 37, an assistant U.S. attorney since 1989 in San Francisco, where the FBI’s Unabomber task force is based, and Robert Steven Lapham, 43, an assistant U.S. attorney in Sacramento, Calif., since 1984.

Sacramento, where two of the three deaths resulting from the Unabomber’s nearly 18 years of terror occurred, including the most recent - last April 24 - and New Jersey where the other killing took place in 1994, are considered the most likely sites for charges to be brought.

Federal anti-terrorism charges carrying the death penalty could be sought in either of the locations, and evidence presumably would be fresher because of the recency of those crimes.

But a Justice Department spokesman said no decision had been made on charges or location beyond the criminal complaint for possessing an unregistered explosive device lodged against Theodore J. Kaczynski last week. Thus the department used the unusual term of “suspect team” to describe the attorneys named to the high-profile case.

With a federal grand jury scheduled to meet next Wednesday in Great Falls, Mont., and likely to consider the evidence under the explosives possession charge, prosecutors appear to be able to easily meet the May 3 deadline for an indictment under the speedy trial act.

That indictment could be replaced by full-scale Unabomber charges in other jurisdictions.