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LOS ANGELES (AP) - The chairman of the Jewish Defense League were arrested in connection with a failed bombing plot, federal authorities said. Irv Rubin, 56, and a member of the militant group, Earl Krugel, 59, were booked early Wednesday at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, detention center spokeswoman Donna Davis said. The arrests late Tuesday were in connection with a bombing plot, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. He would not describe the alleged scheme except to say, "The bombing was not carried out." Criminal charges should be filed later Wednesday, Mrozek ...

  On November 4, 2005, Jewish Defense League (JDL) member Earl Krugel was murdered in an Arizona prison.  It was only his third day into a 20-year sentence at the Federal Correction Institution in Phoenix.  The 62-year old Navy veteran and former dental technician was exercising when another inmate came up behind him and hit him over the head with a concrete block, killing him instantly.  Why a loose cement block was just hanging around the exercise yard is still unknown.  Authorities have been fairly tightlipped so far, but the investigation has reportedly focused on a white supremacist inmate.   While this...

LOS ANGELES - A Jewish Defense League activist imprisoned for his role in an alleged plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman was killed at a federal prison in Phoenix. Earl Krugel, 62, of Reseda, who was sentenced in September to 20 years in prison in a plea bargain, was killed Friday in what his wife said she was told was an assault by another inmate, who hit him from behind with a concrete block. "Earl never saw it happening," Lola Krugel said. "He was exercising." Krugel's sister, Linda Krugel said her brother had...

A leader of the Jewish Defense League who admitted his role in two criminal conspiracies to manufacture and detonate bombs at a mosque and a Congressman's field office was recently sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, the statutory maximum for his two counts of conviction. Earl Leslie Krugel, 62, of Reseda, California, was sentenced by United States District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew. In sentencing the JDL member, Judge Lew recognized that Krugel's actions contributed to an atmosphere of ethnic hatred in the period following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Krugel pleaded guilty in 2003 to conspiring to bomb...

LOS ANGELES - A Jewish Defense League member was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for his role in a plot to bomb a mosque and a Lebanese-American congressman's office. During the hearing, Earl Krugel, 62, apologized and said he was a changed man. But U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew described Krugel's actions as "promoting hatred in the most vile way" and sentenced him to the maximum under Krugel's plea agreement. Lew said Krugel had failed a polygraph test five times during the investigation. "You are not that changed a person. You have more to give," the judge...

Jewish Defense League Leader Irv Rubin Dies After Suicide Attempt in Jail Last Week The Associated Press L O S   A N G E L E S, Nov. 14 — Jewish Defense League leader Irv Rubin, who made a career out of confronting those he considers enemies of Israel and the Jewish people, died in a hospital after attempting to commit suicide in jail last week, authorities said. He was 57. Rubin had been in a medically induced coma since Nov. 4 but died at about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, said Adelaida De La Cerda, a spokeswoman at Los...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jewish Defense League Chairman Irv Rubin, jailed for allegedly plotting to bomb a mosque and the offices of a Arab-American congressman, was left brain dead and on life support on Monday after slitting his throat in a suicide attempt. "He is on life support and his prognosis is dire," Rubin's attorney, Bryan Altman, told Reuters. "He is brain dead. I don't know if there is any indication that that can change in a positive way." Rubin, 57, had been taken from his cell at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles at about 5...

Defending Irv Rubin - - - - - - - - - - - - By Arlene Peck/Jewsweek.com Jewsweek.com | Years ago, I knew Rabbi Meir Kahane. Contrary to many people's thoughts, I found him to be a strong and powerful leader. He walked softly, but carried a big stick. We worked together on a few projects. None of them violent, but, a few that I thought important to the Jewish people. Once, when Billy Carter was traveling around the country with his alleged Libyan terrorist under the guise of a Peace Treaty with Georgia and Libya I called in...