Ex-Officer Gets Probation in Olympic ‘Bomb’ Incident

A former Los Angeles police officer who planted and then “discovered” a bomb-like device on a Turkish Olympic team bus at the 1984 Summer Games in an attempt to impress his superiors was placed on probation for five years and fined $10,000 today.

Jimmy Wade Pearson, 41, a nine-year veteran who resigned after the incident, had pleaded guilty to one count of possession of an explosive. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gerald Levie also ordered Pearson to serve 1,500 hours of community service and undergo psychological counseling.

The Van Nuys resident, who faced up to three years in state prison, refused comment, but his lawyer, Barry Levin, termed the sentence appropriate because Pearson “never intended to hurt anybody.”

Pearson, Levin said, was “an individual with a low threshold to stress,” who also had “an innate desire for attention.” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence Mason, who prosecuted the case, had requested that Pearson be sent to a state correctional institution for a 90-day diagnostic study to determine if he was fit for probation.

Pearson became the brief focus of international attention when he “discovered” the device--explosives that were not rigged to go off--in the wheel well of the Turkish bus at Los Angeles International Airport. Initially cited for heroism by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, Pearson was arrested the next day after failing a polygraph test.