Chevie Kehoe Admits To Shooting Also Denies Involvement In Oklahoma City Bombing, Meeting Timothy Mcveigh

A Colville, Wash., man pleaded guilty Friday to charges that he shot at police officers last year and agreed to a prosecution recommendation that could get him up to 20 years in prison.

Chevie Kehoe, 25, later told reporters that allegations by his brother, Cheyne Kehoe, that he was involved in the bombing of a federal building were not true.

“Flatly, absolutely, no,” Chevie Kehoe said.

Asked if he had met Timothy McVeigh, the convicted bomber of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, Kehoe said: “Absolutely no.”

“I love my brother greatly and I forgive him for all that he’s done,” he said. “But it’s sad when a family has to be torn apart by lies.”

Cheyne Kehoe’s lawyer has said he expects Cheyne Kehoe will be a witness against his brother in Arkansas, where he faces federal charges of murder, racketeering and conspiracy. He has pleaded innocent.

Both brothers are from Colville, and once lived in the Libby area of northwestern Montana.

Chevie Kehoe had been scheduled to go on trial Monday in Clinton County Common Pleas Court on 11 charges accusing him of firing at Wilmington police officers Feb. 15, 1997, and injuring a bystander with a shot.

On Friday, Chevie Kehoe pleaded guilty to felonious assault, attempted murder with a gun and carrying a concealed weapon.

In exchange, state prosecutors agreed to drop the eight other charges against him including felonious assault and attempted murder.

County Prosecutor William Peelle said Kehoe could have gotten up to 40 years in prison if he had gone to trial and been convicted.

He said a similar plea agreement was offered to Cheyne Kehoe, but he chose to go to trial. Kehoe, 21, was sentenced Jan. 20 to 24 1/2 years in prison on similar charges from a shootout minutes before the one in which Chevie Kehoe was charged.

That gun battle was caught on videotape by a camera mounted on the dash of a police cruiser. The video was broadcast nationally. Kort Gatterdam, one of Chevie Kehoe’s attorneys, said the defense accepted the plea agreement for fear that he could have been convicted and gotten a stiffer sentence.

Judge William McCracken deferred sentencing until federal charges are resolved against Kehoe in Arkansas.

When Kehoe will be taken to Arkansas is not certain. A spokesman for the U.S. Marshal’s office in Cincinnati, Pete Grant, said the movement of prisoners is not disclosed for security reasons.

Peelle told reporters that federal authorities have agreed not to use the guilty plea against Kehoe in the Arkansas trial or reindict him on similar federal charges.

The police officers shot at by the Kehoes accepted the terms of the plea bargain, Peelle said.

“My feeling is that justice was served in this case,” Peelle said. “He’s going to be facing significant time in our system regardless of the outcome in Arkansas.”

Attorneys said negotiations for the plea agreement intensified after McCracken rejected defense arguments on Feb. 13 to limit evidence against Kehoe, to delay his trial or to move it to another city.