A federal judge ordered the FBI to search more thoroughly for records about possible links between the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and a gang of white supremacist bank robbers.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball rejected the FBI's argument that all it had to do was a cursory computer database check. Salt Lake City lawyer Jesse Trentadue had filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI documents related to any links between a purported informer, the Aryan Republican Army bank robbers and the federal building bombing that killed 168 people.
The FBI's computer check turned up nothing -- not a report on an FBI interview of Trentadue or a memo Trentadue specifically sought and the FBI released earlier.
In a decision dated Thursday, Kimball ordered the FBI to hand over those records -- without deletions -- to Trentadue by June 15 and manually search its files for more records Trentadue is seeking. The judge also rejected the FBI's argument that releasing the files would invade the privacy of government officials.
"This takes a big step forward for knowing what really happened in Oklahoma City," Trentadue said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Trentadue is pursuing a theory that his brother Kenneth was killed in a federal prison's isolation cell in August 1995. Local and federal investigations ruled Kenneth Trentadue's death a suicide, although bruises and other marks on the battered body raised questions among some officials. Trentadue believes federal authorities mistook his brother, a convicted bank robber, for a member of the Aryan Republican Army bank-robbery gang. Members of the racist gang robbed nearly two dozen banks, mostly in the Midwest, before the FBI arrested them in 1996.
The first memo Trentadue asked for was a Jan. 4, 1996, teletype from then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh's office to field offices, including the one in Oklahoma City. The memo mentions similarities between evidence in the Aryan Republican Army bank robberies, which often used real or fake bombs, and the Oklahoma City bombing.
The publicly released copy of that memo has several names and other details blacked out. Trentadue believes the uncensored memo, which Kimball ordered to be released, would reveal the names of informers within the racist groups.
Trentadue also asked for all FBI documents about any connection between a purported informer and eight named individuals from the Oklahoma City bombing and bank-robbery cases or a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma known as Elohim City. Members of the Aryan Republican Army and convicted bomber Timothy J. McVeigh had visited the compound.
