Date: Sun Dec 24, 1995 12:48 pm CST From: snet l EMS: INTERNET / MCI ID: 376-5414 MBX: snet-l@world.std.com TO: * David Beiter / MCI ID: 635-1762 Subject: FBI-Army team arrests (and kills?) "terrorist" ---------- Forwarded message ---------- The New York Times, December 23, 1995, p. 7. Antiterrorism Law Used In Poison Smuggling Case Man Had Enough Powder for Mass Killing By John Kifner Federal agents have arrested an Arkansas man on charges that he possessed enough of one of the deadliest poisons known -- a favored and nearly undetectable weapon of the old Soviet K.G.B. -- to kill thousands of people, officials said yesterday. The man, Thomas Lewis Lavy, was arrested on Wednesday morning in an F.B.I. raid on an isolated stone cabin in the Ozarks of northern Arkansas. Mr. Lavy, described as about 50 years old, is said by the authorities to have tried to smuggle 130 grams of the fatal poison ricin, a white powder distilled from castor beans, across Alaska's border with Canada in 1993. Although Mr. Lavy was not detained at the time, the Canadian authorities confiscated all the powder that subsequent analysis showed to be ricin. A mere speck of ricin, daubed on the tip of an umbrella, was used by Soviet agents in 1978 to kill a defecting Bulgarian official, Georgi Markov, at a London bus stop. Mr. Lavy was arrested after about 40 F.B.I. agents and Army chemical warfare specialists from Aberdeen, Md., surrounded the small stone house off a series of dirt roads near tiny Onia, Ark., in Stone County. He was charged under an antiterrorism statute with possession of a toxic substance with intent to use it as a weapon. At a hearing in Little Rock yesterday, a United States Magistrate, Jerry Cavanaugh, ordered Mr. Lavy held without bail and transported to Alaska for trial, where the charges were originally filed. Although no poison was seized in the raid, Paula Casey, spokeswoman for the United States Attorney's office In Little Rock, said a container that she described as a pound and a halt Christmas fruitcake can filled with castor beans was found, along with several books detailing recipes for producing ricin from the beans. Neighbors described Mr. Lavy as having ties to "survivalist groups," said Sheriff Fred Black of Stone County, although the Sheriff added that they did not name specific groups. In the parlance of the sparsely populated corner of the Ozarks where the raid occurred, the term "survivalist" refers to far-right Christian fundamentalists who are storing food, weapons and supplies in backwoods hideouts in anticipation of a cataclysmic war. Although officials cautioned that no links to known rightist groups had been established in the case, the arrest came against a backdrop of recent violence that includes not only the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, but several bombings of Federal Government offices in the West and clashes in which local police and sheriffs have been shot by people refusing to obey court orders or pay taxes. Two members of a paramilitary group called the Minnesota Patriots Council were convicted in March of planning to use ricin to kill Federal employees and law-enforcement agents. Ricin is described in the Merck Index, the standard reference on chemicals, as "among the most toxic compounds known." It is 6,000 times 12,000 times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom, wrote Wayne Armstrong, a botanist, in the magazine Environment Southwest. When Soviet agents killed Mr. Markov, the Bulgarian defector, he felt a sharp stab in the back of his right thigh as he waited for his bus near Waterloo Bridge. Turning he saw a man with an umbrella who apologized and hailed a taxi. Four days later, Mr. Markov was dead. Doctors could find no cause for his suffering until a pathologist recovered a tiny metal pellet with two hollow channels, somewhat similar to the ball of a ballpoint pin. The poison ricin was identified in an amount estimated at a few hundred millionths of a gram. Sheriff Black, who accompanied the Federal agents on the raid, said that several rifles he described as "collector's models," five pistols, gold Krugerrand coins and several thousand dollars in cash had also been seized. The arrest was made on a sealed indictment handed up in Alaska on Dec. 12, which charged Mr. Lavy with possession of a toxic substance with the intent to use it as a weapon Ms. Casey said. Federal officials said the charges arose from an effort that Mr. Lavy made in April 1993 to cross to Canada from Alaska, at Beaver Creek, while carrying the 130 grams of ricin. He was also carrying, court documents said, four guns with 20,000 rounds of ammunition, a belt buckle knife and $80,000 in cash. In addition court documents said, he had severai pieces of literature, including "The Poisoners Handbook," and "Silent Death," a work whose author was identified only as Uncle Fester. Canadian border officials turned Mr. Lavy back because he did not have the proper form to bring more than $10,000 into their country. They confiscated the white powder, which he had told them was a poison he was using to kill coyotes preying on his chickens. Federal officials indicated there had been a delay in the Canadians notifying them of the nature of the white powder. Chemists say the tests to identify ricin are extremely difficult and sophisticated. Sheriff Black said Mr. Lavy had moved to the Ozarks -- home to numerous right-wing survivalists -- about three years ago. He said Mr. Lavy was believed to have worked on the Alaska pipeline and seem to have retired. He said Mr. Lavy was pleasant but spoke little to his neighbors. "He just pretty much kept to himself," the sheriff said. The F.B.I. agents appeared in the area about Friday, Sheriff Black said, creeping up on the house from a cemetery. The castor plant, which is readily available, has purplish-green, redveined leaves shaped like starfish. Federal officials said Mr. Lavy told them he had bought his beans by mail from a woman in Oregon. Beans from the plant are used to produce castor oil, paint, varnish, lubricant for jet engines, nylon and transparent soap. In addition to the real-life umbrella case in London, ricin made a fictional appearance in the 1929 Agatha Christie mystery, "The House of Lurking Death," in whlch an heir and heiress die from the poison, which had been mixed into a fig paste. [Map] F.B.I. agents surrounded the suspect's stone house in Onia, Ark. [End] ---------- The New York Times, December 24, 1995, p. 16. Man Arrested In Poison Case Kills Himself In Jail Cell By John Kifner A man charged with possessing enough of one of the deadliest known poisons to kill thousands of people committed suicide in his Arkansas jail cell yesterday morning. The man, Thomas Lewis Lavy, 54, was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday in a raid on his isolated stone cabin in the remote mountains of northern Arkansas and charged under antiterrorism statutes with possession of 130 grams of ricin, a white powder distilled from castor beans. The authorities said he had tried to smuggle the powder across the Canadian border from Alaska in 1993. Canadian authorities confiscated the powder and tests found that it was ricin. Ricin was a favorite and virtually undetectable secret weapon of the former Soviet K.G.B. A mere speck of ricin, jabbed from the tip of a black umbrella, was used by Soviet agents to kill a defecting Bulgarian official, Georgi Markov, at a London bus stop in 1978. Mr. Lavy s lawyer, Sam Heuer, said Federal marshals had told him that Mr. Lavy had hanged himself. The authorities, who did not confirm the hanging, said that he was found unconscious in his cell around 6 A.M. by a guard at the Pulaski County Detention Facility in Little Rock, where he was being held as a Federal prisoner. He was rushed to the University of Arkansas Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy will be performed, Mr. Heuer said. The lawyer took sharp issue with the Government s accusations against Mr. Lavy. "It is such a tragic case," Mr. Heuer said. "An overzealous U.S. Attorney in Alaska and a hot dog F.B.I. agent tried to paint Tom as something he was not." Mr. Heuer said in a telephone interview that Mr. Lavy had possessed the ricin because he had read about the use of ricin by sheep farmers in Montana to control coyotes. "We have the right to have rat poison or coyote poison, just like we have the right to have a .357 Magnum," he said. "It's a right." "Tom was a very gentle, very kindly person," Mr. Heuer said. "He was in great enjoyment of his retirement. He loved the country, he loved the farm. He was a far, far cry from what the Alaskan authorities tried to make him out to be." "He was a 54-year-old man who had never had his liberty taken away. He was a veteran, he fought for his country -- and something of a naturalist. He loved exotic books. He had a great collection on elephant hunting." Mr. Heuer said he had first met Mr. Lavy when he took the case on Thursday. Some 40 F.B.I. agents and Army chemical warfare specialists from Aberdeen, Md., had surrounded the cabin, off a series of dirt roads near tiny Onia, Ark., on Wednesday morning before arresting Mr. Lavy. He was charged with possession of a toxic substance with intent to use it as a weapon under an antiterrorism statute and was held without bail after a hearing in Little Rock on Friday before United States Magistrate Jerry Cavanaugh. The Court ordered that he be transported to Alaska, where the charges were originally filed, for trial. Neighbors described Mr. Lavy as having ties to "survivalist groups," according to Stone County Sheriff Fred Black, although he said they had not named any specific groups. In the Stone County area, a sparsely populated corner of the Ozarks, the term "survivalist" refers to far-right Christian fundamentalists, who store food, weapons and supplies in backwoods hideouts in anticipation of a cataclysmic war. Officials cautioned that they had found no links to known rightist groups. But there have been several recent cases of violent activity linked to right-wing extremists, including the deadly bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a number of bombings of Federal Government offices in the far West and clashes in which police officers and sheriffs have been shot by people refusing to obey courts, pay taxes or put license plates on their cars. Two members of a militia called the Minnesota Patriots Council were convicted in March on charges that they had planned to use ricin to kill Federal employees and law enforcement agents. Ricin is described in the Merck Index, the standard reference on chemicals, as among the most toxic compounds known. It is 6,000 times as potent as cyanide poison and 12,000 times as potent as rattlesnake venom, according to Wayne Armstrong, a botanist writing in the specialist magazine Environment Southwest. Although no actual poison was seized in the raid on Mr. Lavy's house on Wednesday morning, Paula Casey, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney s office, said a container she described as a pound and a half Christmas fruitcake can filled with castor beans was found, along with recipes for producing ricin from the beans. [End]  [ This URL: http://www.pdxnorml.org/MOLEBEAN ]