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]
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