(AP)-- An elaborate plot designed to force the release of an imprisoned white supremacist by creating public hysteria with explosions and an anthrax scare was thwarted by an anti-terrorism team based in Long Beach, CA.
Using homemade bombs encased in white powder, participants planned to create so much chaos that authorities would release the supremacist from Wasco State Prison in Kern County to end the turmoil. The bombs were going to be planted at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, an unidentified Torrance school and three other locations, including a hotel in Bakersfield, investigators said.
“If we had not found out about this, they would have ignited these devices and it would have potentially caused a great deal of panic,” said Redondo Beach police Lt. John Skipper.
Phillip Bristol Tyner, 20, of Torrance was charged with conspiracy to make and place destructive devices. He pleaded guilty June 13 to felony malicious possession of a facsimile bomb and he was sentenced to 16 months in prison.
The plot began to unravel Mar. 20 when officials monitoring inmates’ telephone calls at Wasco State Prison recorded conversations about a biological threat possibly involving anthrax distributed through the mail, police Lt. Patrick Shortall said.
Conspirators, possibly involved with a white supremacist organization, planned to trigger the explosions and mail powder to locations nationwide to cause an anthrax scare. The group would then contact law enforcement officials. If the inmate was freed, he would lead police to locations of other bombs, investigators said.
Those bombs, the inmate would tell police, were near the El Cortez Hotel in Las Vegas and he needed to go there to point them out. Once there, conspirators would help the inmate escape on a motorcycle hidden inside a parked van.