Fbi Urged Informant To Go Slow Agent Defends Lack Of Details On Bombing-Robbery Suspects

The FBI urged its key informant to be cautious when secretly recording the Spokane Valley bombing and robbery suspects, the agency’s lead investigator told jurors Wednesday.

That’s why star witness Christopher Davidson Jr. didn’t push the suspects harder for details about the crimes, FBI Agent David Bedford testified.

“I didn’t want him to risk saying anything to jeopardize his role in this investigation,” Bedford said. “I told him I expected it could last six months.”

Instead, the investigation was interrupted less than two months later, when FBI agents arrested the three men Oct. 8 as they were allegedly preparing to rob a Portland bank.

Earlier, defense attorneys had hounded Davidson for failing to collect any incriminating evidence during 10 taped conversations with suspects Charles Barbee and Robert Berry.

The attorneys suggested Davidson couldn’t get recorded confessions because he was fingering the wrong guys to protect himself.

Berry, 43, Barbee, 45, and Verne Jay Merrell, 51, are in their second trial, charged with bombing Valley offices of The Spokesman-Review, Planned Parenthood and U.S. Bank, and twice robbing the bank on April 1 and July 12, 1996.

The first trial ended in April with a hung jury, after one juror refused to convict on the most serious charges.

On Wednesday, Bedford testified about his first few meetings with Davidson - a former Coeur d’Alene military surplus dealer - in August 1996.

Bedford said he offered Davidson, who since has entered the witness protection program, immunity from prosecution because it might be helpful - not because Davidson was a potential suspect.

“I viewed it as an investigative tool … to ensure us that he had no additional information he was reluctant to share with us,” Bedford said. “He provided no additional information after it was offered.”

Davidson was trying to further win the trio’s confidence, Bedford said, when the men went on a road trip in early October.

FBI agents followed the suspects to Oregon, where they stole a van and tooled around the parking lot of another U.S. Bank branch before being arrested.

During cross-examination from Merrell’s attorney, Frank Conklin, Bedford and Davidson admitted they knew little about Merrell until his arrest. FBI agents didn’t even know his last name, Bedford said.

“We even had a quasi-undercover operation at a gun show with the sole purpose of trying to get a photograph of Mr. Merrell,” Bedford said. “He never showed up.”

FBI agent Richard Conte later identified two hand-held, bulletproof shields seized from Berry’s Sandpoint, Idaho, truck-repair shop. He told jurors he didn’t know why a private citizen would own one.

Conklin jumped at the chance to remind jurors that his client fears the government, was present at Randy Weaver’s 1992 standoff and isn’t like most people.

“Are you familiar with the situation up on Ruby Ridge where Mrs. Weaver was shot?” Conklin snapped. “Would it have been illegal for her to use one if she’d had it?”

Prosecutors expect to call 31 more witnesses before resting their case.

Barbee, Berry and Merrell are charged with eight felonies and face up to life imprisonment without parole if convicted on all counts.

Testimony from Bedford resumes this morning. , DataTimes