Fbi Accuses Militia Of Bomb Plot Seven Arrested On Charges Of Conspiring To Blow Up National Fingerprint Center

The FBI arrested seven people connected to a militia group Friday on charges of plotting to blow up the bureau’s newly constructed national fingerprint center and two other federal buildings in West Virginia.

Federal officials said the seven arrested were members of the West Virginia Mountaineer Militia and were charged with attempting to collect and transport explosive materials with the ultimate aim of destroying the $200 million fingerprint facility in Clarksburg, W.Va. Among those arrested was a member of the Clarksburg Fire Department, who federal authorities said provided photographs of the center’s blueprints that were passed onto an undercover agent that militia members thought was associated with an international terrorist group.

Officials maintained Friday that the militia’s commander, Floyd Raymond Looker, had begun collecting explosives and was preparing to target the fingerprint facility in the event of an apocalyptic “conflict” with the federal government. But authorites acknowledged that Looker had no specific plan or date to destroy the building. And it was only after conversations with the undercover agent that a scheme emerged for international terrorists to blow up the building.

More than 100 federal and local law enforcement officials were involved in the 16-month covert investigation, the latest in a spate of incidents in which federal authorities have targeted paramilitary-style groups after the April 1995 Oklahoma bombing of a federal building that left 168 people dead.

The two Oklahoma bombing suspects allegedly operated on the fringe of militia groups that had become fertile ground for extremists who believe the federal government and the United Nations are engaged in a plot to enslave the American people.

But federal authorities have been accused of overreaching against such groups and engaging in paranoia. Last July, federal investigators charged an Arizona militia group known as the Vipers with training its members to assault federal agencies in Phoenix. But just last week authorities dropped the more serious conspiracy charges against some members. In this case too, federal authorities used an undercover law enforcement official to infiltrate the group, a normal practice but one that is frequently challenged as entrapment.

The West Virginia investigation culminated Friday when the undercover agent allegedly paid the so-called commander of the militia $50,000 for a package of materials, including the center’s blueprints. By Friday afternoon all seven arrests had been made without incident in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The men were charged with conspiring to make bombs, transporting explosives across state lines and engaging in activities aimed at damaging the federal facilities, including the fingerprint center, a sprawling complex camoflauged by hills and trees that lies just outside the small town of Clarksburg.

Looker, the principle target of the probe, is a real estate developer who once ran for a state Senate seat. He has said in a newspaper interview that the Mountaineer Militia has brigades in 37 of West Virginia’s 55 counties. During a April 1995 interview with the Charleston Daily Mail, he expressed concern about government corruption, saying: “They’ve (government officials) got their jobs. They’ve got their retirement. They’ve got their pension. Whether they destroy us or not, they really don’t care.”

But in published accounts Looker has also described his members as patriots, insisting that they are not anti-government, but supporters of the Constitution.

“The Mountaineer Militia is not a vigilante organization, is not a white supremacy organization and is not anti-semitic,” Looker once wrote, according to the Daily Mail.

Charged along with Looker were the fire department lieutenant, James R. Rogers of Jane Lew, W.Va.; Jack Arland Phillips of Fairmont, W.Va.; Edward F. Moore, of Lavalette, W.Va.; James M. Johnson of Maple Heights, Ohio; Terrell P. Coon of Waynesburg, Pa.; and Imam A. Lewis of Cleveland.

Federal officials said, in addition to the undercover agent, they infiltrated the group through the use of a cooperating witness, who was an associate of Looker. Using such methods, they say, is critical if federal agents are to successfully fight threats of domestic terrorism.

“Nobody gets investigated for views outside the mainstream,” said William D. Wilmoth, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of West Virginia. “But when acts of violence are planned, that’s a different matter. I don’t want to overblow the (scope) of the investigation, but anytime there is a threat … you have to take it seriously.”

Wilmoth said that those arrested were engaged in illegal activity and said that one suspect had passed information to a man “he thought was a broker for an international terrorist organization that wanted to blow up the center.”

But Mike Vanderboegh, of the First Alabama Militia, who has been a critic of violence and terrorist acts against the government, said the use of federal informers in similar cases has made him suspicious of federal agents tactics.

“If the story is true (that the group was plotting to blow up the building) I hope they throw the book at them,” said Vanderboegh. But he added, “Given the rush to judgment in other militia cases, I’ll reserve judgment in this case. If it follows the pattern … it would seem to be like another harem-scarem headline that would not pan out.”