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Justice Department Wants to Destroy Possible OKC Evidence
By J.D. Cash
Copyright 2002 McCurtain Daily Gazette
An inmate in federal custody filed a response to a motion with a federal judge,
warning that a storehouse of firearms and bombmaking material the government
wants to destroy, includes potential evidence in the Terry Nichols' trial in Oklahoma
and could also be linked to a triple-homicide in Arkansas, the McCurtain Daily
Gazette has learned.
The government's application for destruction of this material comes after this
newspaper filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal for the material.
The appeal asked lawyers for the Justice Department to order the FBI to provide
photographs of bomb-making materials and other items seized from a terrorist group
that operated out of eastern Oklahoma, Kansas and Ohio.
Peter Kevin Langan is the inmate trying to halt the government's plan to destroy the
potential evidence. Langan is incarcerated in a federal correctional institute in
Florence, Col. The 43-year-old is serving a life-sentence on bank robbery and
weapons convictions.
Pete Langan after being released from the hospital. An FBI SWAT team fired 47
rounds at Langan as he sat in his van in front of the gang's "safe house" in
Columbus, Ohio, January 18, 1996. Only three rounds grazed the bank robber,
including a ricochet, near his eye.
In the early-90's, Langan helped found a terrorist cell modeled after the Irish
Republican Army. Dubbed the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), gang members
frequented an eastern Oklahoma Christian Identity compound called Elohim City, as
well as "safe houses" in Kansas and Ohio.
Beginning with a bank heist in Ames, Iowa on Jan. 25, 1994, the gang's crime spree
included 22 banks in seven states across the Midwest. The FBI estimates at least
$250,000 was stolen.
Wearing makeup, wigs, and often speaking in foreign languages, the men stormed
small banks, grabbing what was in teller's drawers and were gone in less than two
minutes. Often they would leave a fake bomb behind to slow investigators.
Without firing a shot, the ARA's bank robbery record approached the legendary
James' Gang and was featured on America's Most Wanted.
The FBI says some of the money stolen by the ARA funded far- right groups involved
in terrorist activities.
Langan demonstrates hand grenade in video seized by FBI after his arrest. Created
as recruiting tool to attract new members and incite violence against the government,
gang members made the 2- hour film in January of '95 and distributed it to far-right
groups around the US.
Secrets In A Basement?
Langan's filing was precipitated by a motion filed last month by federal prosecutors in
Columbus, Ohio asking the trial judge in Langan's case to allow them to destroy
property seized in connection with the ARA's criminal activities. Prosecutors
acknowledge none of this potential evidence was used in any criminal trial.
Five years ago, the FBI stored evidence of these terrorists' various plots in the
basement of a federal building in Columbus. The public has never seen any of it.
In Langan's five-page response, the inmate points out that some of the material the
government wants to destroy could be relevant to a future trial of Nichols in
Oklahoma and additional prosecutions in the Mueller family murder case in Arkansas
- murders, Langan hints, that involved ARA gang members.
Interviewed by telephone, Langan said he believes that once the materials are
destroyed, he will have lost his best bargaining chips for any immunity deal with
federal prosecutors. He is seeking a plea bargain that would allow him to swap the
names of persons who helped Timothy McVeigh bomb the federal building in
Oklahoma City for a sharp reduction in his own sentence.
It's obviously a high-risk gamble that could snare him, as well.
Independently, the Gazette obtained an itemized inventory of the materials the
government now wants to destroy.
Items listed include a large cache of weapons, fake ID's, explosive devices such as
pipe bombs and grenades, bomb-making components, disguises, fake US Marshall
badges and ID's, shirts and ball-caps with FBI and ATF logos, KKK and Aryan Nation
material, radio scanners, a substantial inventory of blank birth certificates and
driver
license forms, and "how to" books on terrorist tactics.
The Gazette has also obtained a page from a small notebook the FBI found in the
pant pocket of Richard Guthrie, an ex-Navy SEAL turned Aryan Nation's soldier.
Guthrie, dead now, was described by former associates as a deranged, cold-blooded
killer who played a central role in the ARA's criminal activities.
Guthrie's notes list several contacts and phone numbers. On one critical page
appears the address of a parking lot only two blocks north of the where the Murrah
federal building once stood. Next to the address is the name: Dennis Mahon, the only
person who refused to testify before a grand jury that looked into the Oklahoma City
bombing, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.
Mahon is currently a member of California white supremacist Tom Metzger's neo-
Nazi gang, White Area Resistance (WAR).
In August 1994 the Tulsa office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
(BATF) opened an investi-gation into Mahon and WAR.
Their informant, Carol Howe, told her two BATF handlers, David E. Roberts and case
agent Angela Finley Graham, that Mahon and fellow extremist Andreas Strassmeir
were casing federal buildings in Oklahoma with the idea of blowing them up.
Records obtained from other law enforcement agencies corroborate evidence of an
ATF plan to raid Elohim City and make arrests.
But six weeks before the OKC bombing, those plans were blocked by FBI Special-
Agent-in-Charge of the Oklahoma City office, Bob Ricks.
Howe's BATF file indicates US Attorney Steve Lewis, in Tulsa, was also involved with
Roberts during negotiations that eventually scrubbed the operation.
Langan to Name Names
Langan also made this chilling observation in his filing: "Persons who cooperated
with the government as witnesses in my case were involved in multiple murders and
conspiracy to commit multiple murders ... crimes that were known to the United
States government but concealed from the defendant and the public."
Langan says he is in the process of making a "proffer," a legal maneuver allowing
immunized testimony in a criminal trial. He told the Gazette that if subpoenaed and
given immunity, he would testify at Nichols' trial.
The notion that Langan might be able deal himself out of prison, or at least into a
reduced sentence, is not that far-fetched.
In 1993 the Secret Service hired Langan as an undercover informant. The deal
bought Langan a ticket out of jail in Georgia, where he faced a 20-year sentence for
robbery.
Terrorists' Storehouse Part Of Gazette's FOIA Requests
Columbus prosecutors admit there is a large amount of evidence covered in their
destruction order request.
In the basement of the Columbus federal courthouse is a room measuring 15 x 20-
feet with 15-foot height ceilings, prosecutors' reveal.
"The storage room is stacked almost ceiling-high ...with weapons, clothing,
disguises worn, identities used, or tools used to rob banks; false-identity making
equipment; bomb-making equipment; and instructional materials on conducting
terrorist activities," records say.
A year ago, the Gazette obtained a privacy waiver from Langan. With this waiver, the
newspaper submitted several requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
for copies of specific items the government took from Langan's car, storage lockers
and house. The FBI responded to the requests, saying they had no record of ever
having such evidence.
Based upon the brief inventory the Department of Justice submitted to the court in
their motion, the materials the government wants permission to destroy are identical
to the items this newspaper on which the newspaper asked copies and photographs.
The Gazette has an appeal pending at the Department of Justice, asking for an order
requiring the FBI to conduct a competent search and make copies and photographs
available of some of the ARA property seized.
Trail Leads to Elohim City
During the telephone interview, Langan said, he "strongly suspects" one of the ARA's
foot soldiers - former Elohim City resident, Kevin McCarthy - obtained blasting caps
from McVeigh. Langan hinted they were the same ones used in the OKC bombing.
Langan said the FBI seized those blasting caps at the Columbus "safe house," The
inmate suggested a comparison with those McVeigh stole from a Marion, Kan.
blasting site with those found by the FBI.
The Gazette has also learned the FBI located an Arkansas driver's license in a
storage locker the gang rented in Shawnee Mission, Kan. The license carries the
name, "Robert Miller." This is the same name used as an alias for two decades by
gun dealer Roger Moore, formerly of Royal, Ark.
A central theme of the 1997 bombing trials in Denver was that Nichols perpetrated
the robbery of Roger Moore to finance the Oklahoma City attack. A substantial
number of guns belonging to the Arkansas collector were found in Nichols' Kansas
residence and ex-army pal Mike Fortier's trailer in Kingman, Ariz.
But if evidence found in ARA storage lockers matches with the Arkansas gun
robbery, Nichols' lawyers could argue the robbery and the bombing were really ARA
crimes.
Langan also indicated an interest in supplying Arkansas authorities with information
about former gang members' roles in the murder of gun dealers Bill Mueller, 52, and
wife Nancy, 28, along with Nancy Mueller's 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell.
In early January 1996, the Mueller family was surprised in their Tilly, Ark. home by
armed assailants dressed as BATF agents. Six months later, their bodies were
recovered from a bayou north of Russellville.
It would be three more years before a pair neo-Nazi skinheads with ties to Elohim
City, Chevie Kehoe and Danny Lee, were convicted for the brutal crimes. The men
had been part of another terrorist cell operating out of Elohim City - the Aryan
People's Republic.
Some of the Muellers' friends still believe robbery was only one of the motives for the
homicides. Several have suggested that the family was singled out for the particularly
brutal execution because of what they knew about the Oklahoma City bombing.
A criminal investigator in Arkansas said the BATF and FBI learned Mueller had close
ties to a militia group in western Arkansas, once frequented by Mahon and other
radicals from Elohim City.
Indeed, Mueller's wife had been raised at an Identity compound in Arkansas and the
couple also were known to have visited Elohim City.
Reporter Gene Worgis interviewed Mueller and his wife only days before they
disappeared.
Worgis later wrote that the couple told him they were concerned that Elohim City
roommates Andreas Strassmeir and Mike Brescia were going to harm them. Worgis
photographed the couple at the gun show and published a story about their fears in a
newsletter.
Strassmeir was never interviewed by the authorities about the Mueller murders. He
crossed the Mexican border and returned to Germany the same week the Muellers'
disappeared. That same month this reporter found Brescia hiding at the
Pennsylvania residence of Mark Thomas, an Aryan Nation leader and fellow ARA
member who subsequently pled guilty for roles in the bank robbery conspiracy.
Brescia also pleaded guilty to bank robbery and conspiracy charges.
Last March, Brescia and Kevin McCarthy were released from federal custody.
Today, only Langan, Mark Thomas, and former Elohim City resident, Scott Anthony
Stedeford, are serving time for ARA- related crimes.
Richard Guthrie, the co-founder of the ARA, died in July 1996. The Covington, Ken.,
coroner ruled the cause of the death suicide by hanging.
A book manuscript the prisoner left behind listed the name of the gang's getaway
driver as: "Tim, aka, Speedie."
The federal court in Columbus has not ruled on the government's motion or Langan's
response.
Copyright 2002 McCurtain Daily Gazettet
End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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