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 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.
Short sentence for Brescia. Armed robbery doesn't carry the same penalty as it used to.
PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDAMUS OF PETITIONER-DEFENDANT, TIMOTHY JAMES McVEIGH AND BRIEF IN SUPPORT
MARCH 25, 1997
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VII. BEYOND ELOHIM CITY.
A. Suspect I. Posse Comitatus. and Iraq.
The defense believes that there is credible evidence that a conspiracy to bomb federal property, very possibly the Murrah Building, is centered in Elohim City and the persons described which are associated with Elohim City, but that the technical expertise and possibly financial support came from a foreign country, most likely Iraq, but possibly Iran or another state in the Middle East. Dennis Mahon has admitted publicly to received money from Iraq, approximately once a month. D.E. 2191 at 11. According to Mahon, the money started arriving in 1991 after he began holding rallies protesting the Persian Gulf War. Id.
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From the Gazette:
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.