Member of JDL to Plead Guilty Southern California Mosque Bomb Plot

AP, Jan. 31, 2003
http://www.foxnews.com/

LOS ANGELES  — A member of the Jewish Defense League plans to plead guilty to conspiring to bomb a mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman, his lawyers said Friday.

Earl Krugel, 60, will face 10 to 20 years in prison under terms of a plea agreement filed Friday. If convicted at trial, he could have faced life without possibility of parole.

“He wanted to avoid that horrible consequence,” attorney Mark Werksman said.

Prosecutors believe “the interests of justice are met by this resolution,” said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

“We have a case here where we have an older man looking at a very, very lengthy prison sentence,” Mrozek said.

Krugel and the late Irv Rubin, leader of the militant JDL, were arrested in 2001. They were accused of conspiring to bomb the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City and a field office of Rep. Darrell E. Issa, R-Vista.

Rubin died in a hospital in November, nine days after federal officials said he slashed his neck with a prison-issued razor blade and tumbled 18 feet over a detention-center railing. His estate has filed a $5 million wrongful death claim against the government.

Krugel is to plead guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to violate the civil rights of the mosque’s congregation and to carrying an explosive device in connection with a conspiracy to impede or injure an officer of the United States.

Werksman said Krugel’s decision was prompted by the stress caused by Rubin’s death and the nation’s political climate.

“It’s hard to defend against an alleged act of domestic terrorism in the current climate,” Werksman said. “We felt it was advisable to accept a very reasonable offer.”

Had the case gone to trial, Werksman said he would have argued that Krugel was entrapped by overzealous FBI agents.

The JDL was founded by Meir Kahane in 1968 to mount an armed response to anti-Semitic acts in New York.

Read Another Article

Funny and irreverent, ‘The Simpsons’ shapes America’s understanding of religion
Case filed against clone proponents

Related News Articles Topic(s): Hate Groups Subscribe to Religion News Blog updates Subscribe to Religion News Blog [What is this?] Get Religion News Blog's headline by Email [What is this?] Follow Religion News Blog at Twitter Find Related Information Use our custom search engines to find additional research resources on religions and cults: ApologeticsSearch.com: Search for apologetics articles, books, videos, and other research resources across 135 Christian apologetics websites and blogs. CounterCultSearch.com: Search for information about (religious) cults, cult-like organizations, and cults experts -- as well as paranormal-, New Age, and pseudoscientific claims -- across 260+ websites, blogs and forums dedicated to cult research, spiritual abuse, ex-cult counseling & support. Find Related Religion & Spirituality Books at Amazon.com Hate Groups Possibly related... or Most Popular Religion News Articles Kent Hovind: Evangelist arrested on federal charges Beast’s real mark devalued to ’616′ Muslim Woman Gives Sex Advice on Arab TV Michael Jackson Confirms Conversion to Islam Kent Hovind, ‘Dr. Dino,’ guilty on all counts The fall and rise of Carlton Pearson Search False prophet Harold Camping sets another date for rapture: May 21, 2011 Watch the film Theo van Gogh was murdered for Kent Hovind — Dr. Dino — sentenced to 10 years in prison

Search Religion News Blog