-Caveat Lector-

http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/11/21/cyberstalk1121_01.html

'Bitter' Man Accused of Stalking Federal Agents
Sought to Turn Tables on Investigators, Authorities Charge
Nov. 21, 2000

By Joe Beaird

TACOMA, Wash. (APBnews.com) -- A convicted felon with a decade-long antagonism against 
the federal government has been arrested for stalking two Treasury Department agents.

James D. Bell of Vancouver is being held at a federal detention center near the SeaTac 
International Airport as he awaits a bail hearing Wednesday.

Bell is the author of an Internet manifesto called Assassination Politics, which 
proposes a way for people to anonymously claim cash rewards for correctly "predicting" 
the deaths of government employees and officeholders.



The current charges against Bell allege that he made interstate trips attempting to 
track down agents Jeff Gordon and Mike McNall, who work for the Treasury Department's 
inspector general for tax administration.

Bell allegedly pursued these agents, who had investigated him in previous cases, "with 
the intent to injure or harass" them, according to the 17-page criminal complaint 
filed with the U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington at Tacoma.

Prior record

Gordon led a team of agents who searched Bell's house and arrested him in 1997 on 
similar stalking charges. He has also testified against Bell -- a Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology chemistry graduate -- on several occasions.

McNall was involved in another 1996 case in which Bell was convicted of "corrupt 
interference" with internal revenue laws.

"It had to do with Mr. Bell's belief that the agents were illegally harassing him, and 
his response was to begin an investigation of them," said Bell's court-appointed 
defense lawyer Robert M. Leen.

Leen was appointed after Bell complained in Internet-published letters that the 
federal public defender's office was acting in collusion with federal prosecutors.

"Given Mr. Bell's history of stalking and aggressively pursuing people when he feels 
that someone has wronged him, [the public defender's office] thought it would be best 
if someone outside the office represented him," Leen told APBnews.com.

Allegedly gathered names of workers

According to the criminal complaint against him, Bell has been using online databases, 
voter registration data and motor vehicle records to collect the names and home 
addresses of dozens of government employees working for the IRS, FBI, Bureau of 
Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, as well as members of local police agencies.

He also has bragged of using his chemistry knowledge to manufacture the toxic nerve 
gas sarin, the complaint alleges.

In 1997, he pleaded guilty to contaminating an IRS office with noxious chemicals, 
collecting the names of IRS employees, attempting to obstruct the enforcement of 
internal revenue laws, and using false Social Security numbers to hide his assets, 
according to the criminal complaint against him.

Bell apparently believes that federal officials will be less apt to investigate him if 
he collects personal information about them. In Internet newsgroup postings he 
allegedly wrote: "It is very likely that these people will be far more pliable and 
less abusive in the future if they are well-known."

After having tracked down what he thought was Gordon's home address and personal 
information, but which was in fact data about another Jeff Gordon who has a son, 
Joshua, Bell allegedly posted the following Internet message: "So say goodnight to 
Joshua, Mr. Anonymous. Tell him it's not his fault that his father is a thug."

Playing with chemicals

Bell's vendetta against the government apparently took root in 1989 when he was 
arrested for the possession of unregistered chemicals at his home, said Milo Wadlin, 
Bell's brother-in-law.

"He picked up this one chemical that has almost no uses except to manufacture 
methamphetamines," Wadlin told APBnews.com. "It wasn't illegal to have it, but they 
busted his place and it was all over the papers that he had a meth lab. ... He became 
bitter at that point."

Though not illegal to possess, the chemical had to be registered, and Bell failed to 
do so. He was sentenced to probation, which he apparently violated, according to court 
records.

Bell had always been a prankster, Wadlin said, and used to delight in filling aerosol 
cans with marijuana odor and spraying them at police gatherings. But after his arrest 
for unregistered chemicals, the tone changed, he said.

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