Non-Muslim Planning a Bomb-

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2004
Non-Muslim Planning a Bomb-
Thu, 08-05-2004 - 8:24pm
See, these are the people I am more afraid of, not someone in another country.......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5613693/

Man Charged With Planning To Bomb Dirksen Building

WMAQ-TVCHICAGO - Federal authorities arrested a 66-year-old Chicago man Thursday and charged him with planning to bomb the Dirksen Federal Building. Gale Nettles, 66, of the Wilson Club Hotel at 1124 W. Wilson Ave., was named in a criminal complaint with one count of attempting to bomb a federal building, according to federal officials.


Two weeks ago, Nettles rented a space at Public Storage in the 4400 block of North Clark Street, NBC5's Amy Jacobson reported.

Related Article:British Man Arrested On U.S. Terrorism Warrant

"He rented it to store components that he was going to use to construct an explosive device," said Ross Rice, of the FBI.

According to federal agents, he bought 10 boxes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and was trying Thursday morning to sell it to what he believed was an al-Qaida or Hamas agent. In fact, it was an undercover agent. Nettles was arrested at 6:30 a.m. at Wilson Beach Park, immediately after selling the roughly 1,500 pounds of fertilizer to the agent.

Nettles reportedly did most of his planning at home on his computer. Friends called him a computer genius.

"He used to work on computers a lot," said friend Samuel Gelles. "He just loved computers."

This is not Nettles' first run-in with the law, and he allegedly had a grudge against judges. In 1977, he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 30 years. In court notes, he reportedly claimed to be a member of the Aryan Nation.

In October 2000, he was arrested again. This time, he was taken into custody for producing and selling counterfeit bills from his room at the Wilson Club Hotel. Nettles allegedly used counterfeit money to buy the ammonium nitrate from an undercover agent.

"In this job situation, you don't know what the customer is storing until you find out, and then you're like, 'Oh, my God,'" said an employee of the Public Storage. "You have kids, you have a husband and family, and then for someone to come in her with things like that, you never know what's going to happen."

Agents say Nettles acted alone. He reportedly intended to set off the bomb in the late morning, when several judges would be there.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow ordered Nettles to remain in federal custody pending a detention hearing at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. The tall, thin defendant appeared in court wearing brown shoes, blue jeans, and a navy blue jacket over a denim jacket and a blue shirt. His hair was a shaggy grayish-white, and he had a mustache and beard. Nettles spoke little during the hearing, but answered Denlow's questions about whether he understood the charges and possible penalties. A cooperating witness told authorities last fall that Nettles was planning to blow up the Dirksen Federal building using a truck bomb made out of fertilizer, according to the complaint. Although Nettles was alleged to have been planning to bomb the Dirksen Federal Building, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said at the news conference Thursday, "This building and the people in the building were never in jeopardy."

Nettles only dealt with undercover agents who were monitoring him constantly, Fitzgerald said at the courthouse, 219 S. Dearborn St. Thomas Kneir, FBI Special Agent in Charge in Chicago, said, "This individual, we had control of. We were all over this guy." Even though authorities could have arrested Nettles sooner, they continued to monitor him to see if he was working alone or with a group, according to Kneir and Fitzgerald. Although Nettles sought the same products used to create an explosive used by Timothy McVeigh that killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Fitzgerald said an undercover agent provided him with a different fertilizer that could not be used successfully in a bomb. Undercover agents delivered Wednesday the purported fertilizer the defendant was seeking to a storage facility at 4430 N. Clark St., according to Fitzgerald and U.S. Attorney's office spokesman Randall Samborn. Fitzgerald noted that Nettles did not have all the components to build the destructive device. Nettles was serving a two-year sentence at a Federal Correctional Institute in Yazoo City, Miss., for a counterfeiting conviction, when he told another inmate there of his plan to bomb the Dirksen Federal Building, Fitzgerald said. The inmate told authorities that Nettles was familiar with the courthouse and could park a truck with the explosive device in the courthouse loading dock area, the complaint alleged. The inmate cooperated with authorities and gave Nettles a contact number to an undercover agent in Baton Rouge, La., according to Fitzgerald and Kneir. The FBI-led Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force began watching Nettles on Oct. 28, 2003, after he returned to the city to the Salvation Army work release center, the complaint said. In December 2003, Nettles contacted an individual referred to him by the inmate to discuss his obtaining ammonium nitrate fertilizer, according to the complaint. The defendant did not know that the person referred to him was an undercover agent. After Nettles was released from the Salvation Army in the end of December 2003, he met the agent in Chicago on Jan. 14, 2004, to discuss his desire to obtain ammonium nitrate fertilizer, according to the complaint In the recorded and videotaped meeting, Nettles said "he has a problem with the whole federal system, including the judge on his counterfeiting case," the complaint alleged. He described the building to the undercover agent, but gave a wrong address for the Dirksen Federal Building. When they discussed how much ammonium nitrate the defendant needed, Nettles said he "wants to take out a couple of city blocks," the complaint alleged.

In addition to his alleged plan to blow up the federal courthouse, Nettles told the agent he was waiting to get his computer so he could create counterfeit money, which he would sell for 20 percent to 30 percent of its worth. In late April, a second cooperating witness referred Nettles to a friend interested in buying counterfeit bills, according to the complaint. In May, the informant met with Nettles at a restaurant on North Broadway in Chicago, where the defendant delivered $560 in counterfeit bills in exchange for $100 in real currency, the complaint alleged. Between May and July, Nettles gave the informant a total of about $67,000 in counterfeit bills in exchange for a total of approximately $11,000 in real money, the complaint continued.

On July 23, Nettles asked the informant if that person knew anyone involved or associated with Hamas or al-Qaida, to which the informant said the person knew a member of one of the groups, according to the complaint.

Two days later, Nettles met with the informant and an undercover agent, to whom Nettles offered to sell a half-ton of ammonium nitrate for $10,000, the complaint alleged. The defendant also said the ammonium nitrate could be used to blow up the federal courthouse downtown.

Nettles also said in the recorded conversation that he knew how to build the destructive device.

Fitzgerald said Nettles was never in the military and he did not know from where the defendant may have learned to build a bomb.

Days later, Nettles spoke with the undercover officer about blowing up the building in the late morning when the judges would be present, the complaint alleged.

On Thursday, the first undercover agent arrived in a pickup truck containing about 1,500 pounds of fertilizer, which the second undercover officer took out of the vehicle as per Nettle's instructions, the complaint said. If convicted of the charge in the criminal complaint, Nettles faces a statutory sentencing range of five to 20 years in prison, but Fitzgerald said the range did not include any counterfeiting charges, which could be added at a later date.

Kneir said of the case: "As we focus on international terrorism, we can't forget domestic terrorism. Mr. Nettles is one of these guys who hates the government."

The Dirksen Federal Building consists of the U.S. District Court, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Bankruptcy Court, as well as agencies such as the U.S. Attorneys office, FBI, clerk's offices and probation department.