COCKRELL ORDERED TO TRIAL IN BOMB PLOT.Byline: Don Holland Daily News Staff Writer Seven months after a Ventura County jury convicted him in a $1.7 million securities scam, Frank B. Cockrell II was ordered to stand trial for plotting an Oklahoma City-style bombing of the Ventura County Courthouse The Ventura County Courthouse, located in Ventura, California, was designed in 1910 by one of the early pioneers of architecture in Southern California: Albert C. Martin, Sr. to wipe out the case against him. Cockrell, who was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison for securities fraud, could face even more time behind bars if convicted of trying to hire an undercover federal agent to blow up the Ventura County Courthouse, said Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County District Attorney's Office. ``We have charged him with four counts of solicitation to commit murder,'' Pipkin said. ``The actual crime, which was the solicitation, occurred in L.A. County, although the target was in Ventura County.'' At the end of a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Leslie Dunn ordered Cockrell, 50, to answer charges. He is to be arraigned Dec. 2 in Los Angeles County Superior Court before a second preliminary hearing is held to evaluate evidence against him. After he was charged with securities fraud, Cockrell allegedly drew up plans for a bombing campaign against prosecutors, district attorney's investigators and judges. During Cockrell's fraud trial, ATF ATF Molecular virology Activating transcription factor A cellular protein that stimulates transcription of adenovirus E4 transcription unit, which acts early in infection at any of several 'enhancer' binding sites Agent Charles M. Pratt described how he posed as an anti-government militia leader capable of pulling off the reign of terror Reign of Terror, 1793–94, period of the French Revolution characterized by a wave of executions of presumed enemies of the state. Directed by the Committee of Public Safety, the Revolutionary government's Terror was essentially a war dictatorship, instituted to that Cockrell allegedly sought. Cockrell ``wanted the bombing to be part of an overall plan to isolate and paralyze par·a·lyze v. To affect with paralysis; cause to be paralytic. the city of Ventura,'' Pratt said. During recorded meetings between the two, Cockrell allegedly said he wanted to blow up an oil refinery to divert emergency personnel. Then two overpasses of the Ventura Freeway The Ventura Freeway is a freeway in southern California running from Ventura to Pasadena. It is the principal east-west route through Ventura County and in the southern San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County. would be blown up to delay rescue attempts to the county courthouse. During the pandemonium Pandemonium Milton’s capital of the devils. [Br. Lit.: Paradise Lost] See : Confusion Pandemonium chief city of Hell. [Br. Lit.: Paradise Lost] See : Hell , members of Pratt's fictitious militia cell would rob and burn local jewelry and gun stores, using the proceeds to pay for the bombing spree. ``You have a cancer up there,'' Cockrell said during a secretly recorded conversation. ``So how do you cut out a cancer so that it can't - so that it's cured? . . . The less ability they have to keep coming after me, the better I am.'' |
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