JEWISH CENTER WAS TARGET OF BOMB PLOT; WIESENTHAL OFFICIALS INFORMED BY FBI.Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer Officials at the Simon Wiesenthal Center  This article is currently semi-protected to prevent sock puppets of currently blocked or banned users from editing it. acknowledged Saturday that they were one of three human-rights groups targeted for bombing by a group of white supremacists in Illinois. ``We received a call a couple of days ago from the FBI, telling us a number of individuals had been arrested,'' said Rabbi Abraham Cooper Abraham Cooper (1787-1868), English animal and battle painter, the son of a tobacconist, was born in London. At the age of thirteen he became an employee at Astley's Amphitheatre, and was afterwards groomed in the service of Sir Henry Meux. , the center's associate dean. An FBI spokesman said the suspects ``had plans to do harm to three institutions, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles,'' Cooper said. Federal authorities said the men are members of a white supremacist group called The New Order. They were arrested Feb. 23 in raids at their southern Illinois homes, where authorities found guns, a pipe bomb and hand grenades. FBI officials said the suspects were plotting to bomb the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of headquarters of the Anti-Defamation League Anti-Defamation League B’nai B’rith organization which fights anti-Semitism. [Am. Hist.: Wigoder, 33] See : Anti-Semitism and the Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an internationally known nonprofit organization that files Class Action lawsuits to fight discrimination and unequal treatment; it also tracks hate groups and runs a program to educate Americans about racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of in Alabama. The suspects also were plotting to murder a federal district judge and Morris Dees, the leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the FBI charged. Officials also accused the suspects of intending to use cyanide to poison a large water supply. The suspects are Dennis Michael McGiffen, 35, of Wood River, Ill.; Wallace Scott Weicherding, 64, of Salem, Ill. and Ralph P. Bock Noun 1. bock - a very strong lager traditionally brewed in the fall and aged through the winter for consumption in the spring bock beer lager beer, lager - a general term for beer made with bottom fermenting yeast (usually by decoction mashing); originally , 27, of Brighton, Ill. The were detained after a hearing Friday in East St. Louis, Ill. Authorities said they began learning of a plot last year when the suspects attempted to recruit a man who then became a federal informant. At a bail hearing Friday, an FBI agent said the suspects planned to finance their plans with a series of bank robberies and armored car heists. A trial has been set for April 27. During search raids on Feb. 23, officers found a machine gun, a pipe bomb, grenade components, large amounts of smokeless smoke·less adj. 1. Emitting or containing little or no smoke: smokeless factory stacks. 2. black powder, a sawed-off shotgun and other weapons. The suspects are reportedly members of a group called The New Order, which FBI officials report was being modeled after another group called Order, a domestic terrorist group led by Robert Mathews. Order was ``probably the most violent, racist group in decades,'' Rabbi Cooper said. ``The overall point is that we take our security very seriously.'' -- Staff Writer Andrew Horan and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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