Free Republic

  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...