“A Federal District Court jury tonight found Carol Howe, 26, a former debutante who became a neo-Nazi, innocent on charges that she had threatened to blow up buildings in 15 cities.”
“Her life as a white separatist, she told the jury earlier today, was only a pose, first to gather information as an undercover Government informant, and later to protect herself after her name was disclosed to lawyers for the defense in the Oklahoma City bombing trial.”
“Using the name Freya, Miss Howe had been part of a crowd of skinheads and neo-Nazis, and the co-founder of the National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma. But as it turned out, her story was even more complicated than that, and a shock for her associates in the violent right.”
“She was also an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The A.T.F. knew her as CI-183.”
“Prosecutors said Miss Howe and her fiance, James Dodson Viefhaus Jr., who was convicted last week on identical charges, were the co-founders and possibly the only members of the National Socialist Alliance of Oklahoma, which set up a telephone line to play racist messages, one of which suggested that a black teen-ager would make good material for target practice.”
“On Dec. 8, 1996, a message read by Mr. Viefhaus called for racial war, saying, ”A letter from a high-ranking revolutionary commander has been written and received demanding that action be taken against the Government by all white warriors by Dec. 15, 1996, and if this action is not taken, bombs will be activated in 15 preselected cities.””
“Alarmed, agents from the F.B.I. raided the Viefhaus-Howe house. Among items seized was a sealed box holding materials that Assistant United States Attorney Neal Kirkpatrick of Tulsa said could be turned into a pipe bomb ”in a New York minute.””
“Mr. Viefhaus was arrested at once, and charged with making a bomb threat and possessing an unregistered destructive device. Miss Howe was indicted three months later”
“Miss Howe’s lawyer, Clark O. Brewster, told the jury that Miss Howe had only a fleeting career as a white supremacist, in the spring of 1994, when she called Dial-A-Racist, a telephone line operated by Dennis Mahon, who lives in Tulsa and is a leader in the White Aryan Resistance, a white separatist group based in California. After that, Mr. Brewster said, she was merely trying to protect herself and help the Government.”
“For six months, Miss Howe taped her conversations with Mr. Mahon, took notes when he told her how to make napalm or grenades,and went with Mr. Mahon to Elohim City, a white separatist community in eastern Oklahoma on the Arkansas border.”
Miss Howe told “that the Rev. Robert Millar, the leader of Elohim City, told his followers in a sermon in December 1994, ”to take whatever action necessary against the U.S. Government,” and that ”certain groups from Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma will be uniting as one front to fight the Government.””
“Miss Howe called the firearms bureau after the Oklahoma City bombing to say she thought she could identify John Doe No. 2, a suspect who, if he exists, has never been found. The bureau reactivated her as an informer, vouched for her mental stability and asked her to look for him at Elohim City, which she did for a few days.”
“At the request of senior A.T.F. officials, agency documents show, Miss Howe was to be kept on the roster of informers for the duration of the Oklahoma City bombing investigation. She was not dropped until Dec. 20, 1996, a few days after a raid on her house by F.B.I. agents who had no idea at the time that she had any connection with the A.T.F. “
Read more: A Spy on Radical Right Is Acquitted (archived)
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