Attorney Offers Document On Oklahoma City Bombing

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) _ Attorney Jesse Trentadue, pursuing the 1995 death of his brother in an Oklahoma prison, has disclosed a document concerning an informant at a white supremacist camp telling federal authorities of a threat to blow up federal buildings before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Trentadue said he also discovered an FBI report on a 1997 interview with a Houston man who portrayed himself as a white supremacist and said he had spoken with bomber Timothy McVeigh a few days before the deadly attack on the Murrah Building. In that interview, the man discussed how the truck carrying the explosives was parked too far away to inflict the maximum damage possible.

The documents were filed in U.S. District Court by Trentadue as part of his effort to obtain records on the bombing, which he believes hold clues to the death of his brother in a federal prison. The lawyer, who did not disclose where he got the material he introduced, contends that the FBI is violating the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to provide the requested documents.

Kenneth Trentadue, 44, was found dead on Aug. 21, 1995, in his cell in a federal prison in Oklahoma, where he was being held on an alleged parole violation. The death was ruled a suicide, but family members believe he was killed during an interrogation by authorities who mistakenly believed he had been involved in the bombing a few months before.

Jesse Trentadue and Assistant U.S. Attorney Carlie Christensen argued before U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball on Thursday over whether the FBI should be required to release requested documents.

Trentadue contends the government is wrongly claiming that the documents either can't be found or contain confidential information that exempt them from disclosure.

He said the FBI wants to conceal its mishandling of the investigation into activities at the white supremacist camp and its failure to stop the Oklahoma City bombing.

Christensen argued that the FBI did its best to reasonably respond to Trentadue's documents request, but releasing the names of FBI agents, informants and people of interest connected to the bombing could put the lives of many people in danger.

Christensen said that danger far outweighs any public interest in the release of their names.

Trentadue said what the FBI is really afraid of is putting their informants and agents at risk of criminal and civil liability from the government and the families of victims in failing to act to prevent the bombing.

DOH!

Ya know, the way the original poster, banned freeper "Uncle Bill", formatted the message, it's hard to distinguish between the article contents he's quoting and his and other's comments - which he also quotes.

I thought he was quoting from this article - Cover-Up In Cell 709A (which was deleted from FR but still exists in the wayback machine if you click on the link).

After diging into Cover-Up In Cell 709A, it's clear that Uncle Bill was actually quoting a reply by someone posting on FR as:

bcspecht at westol dot com
From: B.C. Specht () *
01/16/98 15:53:39 PST

Ms. Specht attributed her recollections to "J.D. Cash, reporter for the McCurtain Daily Gazette in Idabel, OK".

Mystery Solved after an evening spent googling Mr. Cash:

Plaintiff [Jesse Trentadue] received a message from McVeigh stating that McVeigh believed Plaintiff's brother was killed because of FBI Defendants' mistaken belief that Kenneth Michael Trentadue was actually Richard Lee Gurthrie.

So there it is - Ms. Specht (and the FBI) probably confused Kenneth Trentadue with Richard Lee Guthrie Jr., one of the leaders of the Midwestern Bank Bandits,[who] was planning to write a book about his crime spree, according to a letter he sent The Dispatch six weeks before his 1996 death.

I found nothing to corroborate the speculation that Kenneth Trentadue ever mentioned that he was writing a book or had a relationship with the OKC bombers.

I must apologize to Mr. Trentadue, his kin, and my fellow Freepers for repeating this speculation in my previous post.

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