Witness: Dennis Mahon claimed he was third man in Oklahoma City bombing

The trial opened today for Arizona white supremacists Dennis and Daniel Mahon, who are accused of bombing the office of a state diversity official in 2004.

Much of the case hinges on information collected by informants, including a woman who sent the brothers racy photos. A defense attorney dismissed statements made by Dennis Mahon to the informant, saying he was an alcoholic with a tendency toward self-aggrandizement.

Alcohol, at least, was likely not a factor in Dennis Mahon's conversations with his cellmate after he was arrested in 2009. One of those statements was particularly interesting according to a recent filing in the case:

Mr. Scott [the cellmate] stated that he and Dennis Mahon found they had an interest in military history in common, and that is how they began talking about bombs. Ms. Scott said that Dennis told him he had known Tim McVeigh and that he (Dennis) was the number three anonymous person in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation.

Read the full document

Mahon has spoken of knowing McVeigh in the past. Based on those comments and other information, it is at least plausible that Mahon was involved in the bombing. I'll have more on this over time.

Labels: Dennis-Mahon, OKBOMB, Oklahoma-City-Bombing, Timothy-McVeigh

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Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Just Days After OKC Bombing, Informant Named Two Key Suspects

Just days after the Oklahoma City bombing, an informant told the FBI that white supremacists Dennis Mahon and Andreas Strassmeier had been actively discussing plans to bomb the Alfred E. Murrah federal building for months prior to the attack.

A record of an FBI interview with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms informant Carol Howe, dated April 21, 1995, was provided to INTELWIRE by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue and investigative journalist Roger Charles. Trentadue is engaged in a lawsuit to compel the FBI to release documents pertaining to the bombing under the Freedom of Information Act. Charles, a retired Marine Corps officer, worked with J.D. Cash of the McCurtain Gazette investigating the bombing.

Mahon and Strassmeier both have ties to a large number of white supremacist and anti-government movements, and both have been linked to a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma known as Elohim City. Both men separately claimed to have met convicted OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh at gun shows prior to the attack. McVeigh placed a call to the Elohim City compound, where Strassmeier was living, shortly before the bombing.

According to the document (click here to read), Mahon told Howe he wanted to target federal facilities for bombings, including specifically federal buildings in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Howe told the FBI that Mahon and Strassmeier took three trips to Oklahoma City, in November 1994, December 1994 and February 1995. According to a chronology of McVeigh's travels compiled by his defense team (link), McVeigh was also in Oklahoma City in December 1994 and cased the Murrah building during that trip. However, Howe said she accompanied Mahon and Strassmeier on the trip and did not report any meeting with McVeigh.

It's not clear how much the FBI did to attempt to follow up on this information. The FBI has consistently refused to disclose the bulk of its investigative file related to the Oklahoma City bombing.

What records have been released through Trentadue's lawsuit and other sources do not detail any substantial investigation of Mahon and only relate a belated interview of Strassmeier by phone after he had left the United States. Strassmeier left the U.S. soon after the bombing and now lives in his native Germany.

Dennis Mahon is currently facing trial, along with his twin brother Daniel, for a 2004 bombing that targeted Don Logan, a black official working for the Scottsdale, Arizona, city diversity office. Logan was injured in the attack.

According to the Associated Press, the Mahon brothers' trial was scheduled to start this month but has been delayed until early 2012 because of "a 'substantial' amount of information disclosed by the government" during discovery. The nature of the disclosures is currently unknown.

Previously released documents (click to read) indicated that Howe had related the possible threats described above to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms prior to the April 1995 bombing (for specific testimony, click here).

Labels: Andreas-Strassmeir, Dennis-Mahon, Elohim-City, Jesse-Trentadue, OKBOMB, Oklahoma-City-Bombing, Timothy-McVeigh

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Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Indictment of Robert Joos, Linked to Mahon Arrests

The Mahon arrests (document, story) were not an isolated incident, it appears. It's part of a sting by the ATF using informants and at least one undercover agent. The sting is described in great detail in the document below.

Affidavit pertaining to the indictment of Robert Neil Joos

Labels: Dennis-Mahon, INTELFILES, white-supremacists

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Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Bombing Investigation: ATF Raids White Supremacists;Three States In One Day

By J.M. Berger
INTELWIRE.com

An undercover ATF sting raided white supremacists in at least three states on Thursday in an investigation connected to the 2004 letter bombing of Don Logan, an African-American who worked for a diversity program in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms infiltrated "several" undercover agents into white supremacist circles as part of the investigation, according to court records.

In Arizona, Dennis and Daniel Mahon were arrested this week by the ATF on a sealed indictment issued June 16.

In Missouri, Robert Neil Joos was arrested by the ATF on a firearms charge. An ATF affidavit said the arrest resulted from a multi-year investigation into the Logan bombing.

According to the affidavit, Dennis Mahon called Joos on the morning of the bombing.

"The subsequent investigation has focused on several persons involved in the white
supremacist movements throughout the United States," according to the affidavit. The probe included "several ATF undercover agents" and at least one informant.

The informant and one undercover agent made close contact with the Mahon brothers, who described Joos as the owner of a "retreat" used as a training camp by the white supremacist movement.

Undercover operatives subsequently made contact with Joos and toured his facility, according to the affidavit. The retreat included a system of caves which Joos claimed were ideal for evading law enforcement.

"The ATF's investigation of Robert JOOS utilized covert tactics, to include undercover meetings with JOOS while on JOOS' Missouri property," the affidavit states.

ATF conducted a third raid yesterday at the home of Thomas Metzger, one of the chief advocates of "leaderless resistance," in Warsaw, Indiana. Metzger was not arrested.

Metzger told the Warsaw, Indiana-based Times-Union that the raid was linked to the Mahon arrests. Metzger is considered a leader of the White Aryan Resistance, an organization to which the Mahons also reportedly belong.

"I've known them [the Mahon brothers] for years," Metzger told the newspaper. "I've talked to them on the phone, but it was usually about the weather or their invalid mother.

David Paul Hammer, an inmate who spent about two years on death row with convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, said McVeigh told him that German national Andreas Strassmeir and convicted bank robber Michael Brescia planned the Oklahoma City bombing at a white separatist compound known as Elohim City.

An ATF informant named Carol Howe also allegedly heard Mahon and Strassmeir discussing plans to bomb federal buildings, including one in Oklahoma City, prior to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (document). According to court testimony by Howe in 1997, she heard Strassmeir discussing these plans prior to the actual bombing.

Labels: Dennis-Mahon, INTELWIRE-Exclusive, white-supremacists

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

OKBOMB: Dennis Mahon Indictment

White supremacist brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon have been indicted in Phoenix, Arizona, for an alleged bombing plot:

Indictment of Dennis and Daniel Mahon

The name of Dennis Mahon will be familiar to those who have followed the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy investigation.

Chairman's Report, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation

A relevant excerpt:

Carol Howe came from a prominent Tulsa family. She was attracted to the white supremacist movement in February 1994 after she was allegedly attacked by three African-American men. She became a paid informant for the ATF and a frequent visitor to Elohim City in June 1994. Howe testified in Terry Nichols' federal trial that she saw McVeigh with [German national Andreas] Strassmeir at Elohim City in July 1994.

Howe dated Strassmeir in 1994 and January 1995. Howe asserted that Strassmeir trained Elohim City racist radicals in weaponry and had discussed assassinations, bombings and mass shootings. Strassmeir, according to Howe, frequently called for direct action against the U.S. federal government. Howe reported these statements to the ATF. It is not clear how seriously they were taken, as authorities have tried their best to discredit Howe as a witness. She was a former drug abuser and had other personal weaknesses; nonetheless, she was a paid ATF informant and in the aftermath of Waco and Ruby Ridge must have been considered an important source of information.

Howe also talked to the ATF regarding Dennis Mahon, an occasional inhabitant of Elohim City who is listed as a terrorist in several countries (including Germany and Canada) and is a leader of the White Aryan Resistance. Strassmeir also stayed with Mahon while attending weekend gun shows in Tulsa. Howe reported that Mahon talked about targeting federal buildings for bombings. Her reports could be interpreted as warnings of the upcoming Oklahoma City bombing. Howe, for example, claimed that Mahon and Strassmeir took three trips to Oklahoma City, in November 1994, December 1994, and February 1995, on one of which she accompanied them.

Labels: American-Terrorists, Andreas-Strassmeir, Dennis-Mahon, INTELFILES, OKBOMB, Oklahoma-City-Bombing

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Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink