Suspect Tied To Militia Sympathizer Witness Expected To Tell Jurors Barbee Confessed To Bombings
Accused bomber Charles Barbee was no stranger to well-known militia sympathizer Dennis Stucker, prosecution witnesses testified Friday.
Documenting telephone conversations and a Hamilton, Mont., jail visit between the pair, federal prosecutors were preparing jurors for Stucker’s testimony Monday.
Stucker, a retired AT&T systems analyst who worked with Barbee in Florida, is expected to say that Barbee confessed to being involved in a series of three bombings and two bank robberies in the Spokane Valley.
Thirty-seven phone calls were placed from Barbee’s Sandpoint home to Stucker’s Darby, Mont., home between January and August 1996. Two of those calls were made the evening of July 12.
That afternoon, terrorists wearing dark clothing bombed the Valley Planned Parenthood clinic and robbed the same U.S. Bank branch that had been bombed and robbed 11 weeks earlier.
Barbee, 45, Robert Berry, 43, and Verne Jay Merrell, 51, are facing their second trial for the terrorism spree. The first trial ended in a hung jury when a single juror said he couldn’t convict the defendants on the most serious charges.
Stucker has been in jail off and on for more than a year for violating probation by having firearms.
He was charged with felony obstruction of justice in April 1995 for helping his friend - patriot and anti-government activist Calvin Greenup - flee Montana. Stucker, Greenup and two others were accused of plotting to kill Ravalli County officials and to install “common-law courts” nationwide.
Stucker was placed on probation and prohibited from carrying weapons. But he was caught April 12, 1996, with an arsenal. In November, a Montana judge gave him a suspended 10-year sentence for possessing the weapons.
Most recently, Stucker was arrested in February for illegally possessing a rare pistol in his home. A judge sentenced Stucker in March to 10 years in prison.
On Friday, prosecutors highlighted phone calls placed from Barbee’s home to Stucker’s home on April 3 and 4, July 12 and Aug. 4, 8, 11 and 12.
“One thing a phone bill can’t tell us, I guess, is who called and who answered,” Barbee’s lawyer, Roger Peven, said to the witness, GTE representative Ann Emel.
“That’s correct,” she replied.
Jail records show the Barbee family visited Stucker at the Ravalli County Jail in Hamilton at 10:35 a.m. Aug. 10. Charles Barbee signed into the log twice and his wife signed in once.
In other testimony, Robert Berry’s brother talked about weapons and gear tying the defendants to the crimes.
This time, Loren Berry gave testimony different from the first trial. For example, he said his brother gave his family a tour of the bombing and robbery sites in August, while driving home from a family reunion in Oregon.
While driving to Burger King, Robert Berry pointed out the Planned Parenthood clinic, the Valley Spokesman-Review office and the U.S. Bank branch, his brother said.
On cross-examination, defense lawyers tried to show that Loren Berry has changed his story since first talking to the FBI. The defense also noted Loren Berry’s drinking and problems with the law.
Loren Berry admitted drinking between a six-pack and a 12-pack of beer every day before his brother was arrested. After the arrest, he drank about a case of beer a day, finally cutting back and reconciling with his ex-wife in December.
Loren Berry told the jury he watched the defendants spray-paint a chrome gun black, color ski goggles black with a Magic Marker and burn a canvas bowling bag.
He also said he hid a shotgun from the FBI after his brother’s teenage son asked him to.
Prosecutors are trying to connect those items to the crimes.
Loren Berry said he felt compelled to tell the truth after first lying to authorities about his brother’s actions.
“I was suicidal,” he said. “I decided the only thing I could do was to tell the truth - no matter what the consequences. It was nothing I wanted to do. It was something I had to do.”
, DataTimes