West Side Case Studied For Link To Valley Blasts

Tue., July 30, 1996

By Bill Morlin billm@spokesman.com

FBI agents are checking if there’s a link between a Western Washington explosives ring and unsolved bombings and bank robberies in Spokane.

No firm connections are known, but the possibility hasn’t been eliminated, FBI officials said Monday.

Nine suspects, including four members of the Washington State Militia, are under arrest in Seattle on federal conspiracy and explosive charges.

The arrests occurred Saturday afternoon while the suspects were attending a bomb-making class in Bellingham, said Burdena Pasenelli, FBI special agent in charge.

Court documents allege members of the group planned to use firearms and explosives in confrontations with the U.S. government or the United Nations.

FBI agents who made the weekend arrests also found pipe bombs and bombmaking components, including propane cannisters similar to those used in one of the Spokane bank robberies.

There was no connection with Saturday’s bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, FBI officials said.

As part of routine investigative procedures, FBI agents are checking to see if the Seattle-area suspects have any ties to earlier bombings in Spokane.

“We’re looking for some possible ties to what’s happened in Spokane, but we haven’t found anything at this point,” the official said.

Based on evidence recovered and preliminary interviews, there’s a less than 10 percent chance any of the Seattle-area suspects will be implicated in the Spokane bombings, the official predicted.

“We’re going to take a double look at them to make totally sure they aren’t involved in what’s gone on in Spokane,” the official said.

One suspect, William Smith, 60, who’s also known as William Stanton, resembles a composite drawing of a bearded suspect in the Spokane robberies.

Another common denominator is one of the Seattle suspects has links with the Montana freemen and that group’s imprisoned leader, LeRoy Schweitzer, formerly of Colfax, Wash.

Armed gunmen who bombed and robbed U.S. Bank in Spokane on April 1 shouted references to the Montana freemen.

That robbery occurred one week after FBI agents arrested Schweitzer, triggering a historic 81-day siege.

FBI agents in Seattle and Bellingham will now go through the laborious task of checking the work records and whereabouts of the nine suspects on April 1 and July 12.

On those dates, a U.S. Bank branch at Sprague and Mullan was robbed after earlier pipe bombings at offices of The Spokesman-Review and Planned Parenthood.

A getaway van used in the first robbery was stolen in Ellensburg. An almost-identical van used in the second Spokane robbery was stolen from a lot in Federal Way, south of Seattle.

There have been no arrests for either of those bombings or robberies, or an April 29 bombing at the entrance of Spokane’s City Hall.

, DataTimes

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