May 25 - June 2, 1995: Lawyer Asks Judge for Accused Oklahoma City Conspirator to Be Released without Bail, Prosecution Counters

The lawyer for accused Oklahoma City co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995) asks Federal Judge David L. Russell to release his client without bail. Defense lawyer Michael Tigar calls the government’s evidence against Nichols “lamentably thin,” and says Nichols’s actions, particularly in connection with accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995), were innocent and typical of a “peaceable, law-abiding person.” Tigar, along with co-counsel Ronald G. Woods, is apparently following a strategy of attempting to distance Nichols from McVeigh, claiming that Nichols and McVeigh had a “falling out” in February 1995 over plans to work gun shows and swap meets together. According to court papers filed by Tigar, Nichols had printed up his own business cards and other material for a new business trading in military equipment that had no place for McVeigh. Tigar also assails the government’s investigation, accusing FBI investigators of withholding evidence from the defense, of holding Nichols’s wife Marife (see July - December 1990) “virtually incommunicado and without counsel” for “33 days of continuous interrogation,” and of refusing to interview witnesses with information favorable to Nichols. According to Tigar’s timeline of events, Nichols, knowing little to nothing of a specific bomb plot (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Late 1994, April 19, 1993 and After, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, September 13, 1994, September 30, 1994, October 3, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 17, 1994, October 18, 1994, October 20, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, November 5, 1994, November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995, November 7, 1994, March 1995, April 13, 1995, and April 15-16, 1995), met with McVeigh on April 16 in Oklahoma City and drove him to Junction City, Kansas (see April 16-17, 1995). Prosecutors have stated that the day before, McVeigh told Nichols that “something big is going to happen,” impelling Nichols to ask if McVeigh planned on robbing a bank (see April 15, 1995). In Tigar’s timeline, this exchange never happened. Instead, Tigar’s timeline recounts a lengthy story of McVeigh calling Nichols on April 16 complaining of car trouble; McVeigh, Tigar claims, had a television set with him that belonged to Nichols’s ex-wife Lana Padilla that Nichols wanted for his home in Herington, Kansas (see (February 20, 1995)). Nichols drove to Oklahoma City to get the television set. Tigar says that the Nichols family used the television set to watch a videotape of The Lion King and two other movies on April 17. In the days before the bombing, Tigar says Nichols took his family to a restaurant, picked up new business cards and labels, and, on the day of the bombing, visited a local hardware store and a military surplus dealer to discuss selling or trading Army tools, possibly for roofing shingles, and worked around his house. Tigar says Marife Nichols has confirmed this version of events. Tigar also says that prosecution allegations that Nichols used his pickup truck on April 18 to help McVeigh load fertilizer into the rented Ryder truck McVeigh used for the bombing (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995) are false, and instead Nichols had loaned McVeigh his truck, and not accompanied McVeigh to the loading site at Geary Lake in Kansas. Tigar also says that a fuel meter owned by Nichols and believed by the prosecution to have been used to measure the bomb ingredients was broken the entire time Nichols owned it. [New York Times, 5/19/1995; New York Times, 5/25/1995] Later press reports will show that Tigar’s information about the supposed “falling out” between McVeigh and Nichols comes from Padilla. According to Padilla: “He said, ‘Tim and I are going to go our separate ways and I am going to the shows myself.’ That surprised me. They were going to go their own ways and it was because Terry was going to buy his own house and have his wife and baby come out. I don’t think that Tim could stand that. Terry also said that Tim didn’t like kids.” [New York Times, 8/6/1995] The prosecution counters with a request to hold Nichols without bail, citing evidence seized from Nichols’s home that implicates him in the bombing conspiracy (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995), and a series of letters he wrote to the IRS and other federal agencies repudiating his citizenship and asking to be exempted from paying federal taxes (see April 2, 1992 and After). Prosecutors say the letters demonstrate Nichols’s repudiation of “roots to this country and its sovereign states” and that he therefore should be denied bail. “Nichols poses a danger to the community and an unreasonable risk of flight against which no conditions of release could adequately guard,” the prosecutors argue. Russell denies Nichols bail and orders him to remain in custody. Tigar says he will appeal the ruling. Russell also orders that Nichols be allowed to sleep without lights beaming into his cell 24 hours a day, and that prison officials not allow any more mental health professionals to interview Nichols without the court’s approval. Tigar has called a visit by a previous counselor “unwanted” and intrusive. [New York Times, 6/2/1995; New York Times, 6/3/1995]