School Owners Hired Mercenaries, Court Papers Say : 5 Arrested in Firebombings of Cars

It might have been an episode of an “A-Team” look-alike, or perhaps the “The Mercenaries Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Something like that. But, government prosecutors were deadly serious Tuesday over charges in two car firebombings in San Bernardino County.

The cast of defendants included two women who own several preschools and elementary schools in Orange and San Bernardino counties who, faced with what they saw as harassment, turned to the operator of a mercenary-survivalist training facility in Alabama for help.

The plot, outlined in a 42-page criminal complaint issued Tuesday, involved an undercover agent who posed as a mercenary trainee, a four-man “mission” to California, two bodyguards who hid in a tree with rifles and two women who carried firearms in their purses and ammunition in their bras.

The fade-out to action, after a nine-month investigation by local and federal authorities, came Tuesday with the arrest of Charlotte Ruth Wyckoff, 51, and Elizabeth Leta Hamilton, 39, at their Spanish-style, four-story residence on Blue Lantern in Dana Point.

Also arrested in Hueytown, Ala., near Birmingham, was Franklin Joseph Camper, 38, owner-operator of the Mercenary Association, located at a place called “The Bunker,” and two associates, James Larosa Cuneo, 22, and Paul Hamilton, 42. Another associate, William Dean Hedgecorth, 22, was still being sought.

The six were charged with conspiracy, arson and use of napalm-like gasoline devices last August to destroy cars belonging to Robyn and Michael Rishoff of Etiwanda and Harriet and Richard Russo of Ontario.

The government claims that Wyckoff and Hamilton spent thousands of dollars to hire Camper and his three-member team to intimidate and assault former teachers who once worked for the two women.

Cars Destroyed

The Russos’ 1976 Honda and a portion of their attached garage were firebombed about 3 a.m. on Aug. 13. Around the same time, the Rishoffs’ 1979 Mercury was destroyed by an explosion at their home a few miles away.

Plastic jugs containing gasoline and another substance, resembling soap, were found at the scene of the Russo bombing. The couple also found a wooden stake in the front yard. Taped to it was the message, “Pay your bills or next time it will be you.”

But, according to the government’s complaint, prepared by Assistant U.S. Attys. Charles J. Stevens and David W. Wiechert, the motive for the firebombings has nothing to do with an angry bill collector, and everything to do with the victims’ former association with Wyckoff and Hamilton in California Learning Centers, the schools that the two women operated. The name has since been changed to the Pacific Coast Preparatory Schools.

Complaints Filed

Both Rishoffs had taught at one of the schools. Each had been fired within about six months in late 1984 and early 1985, and both had filed complaints against Wyckoff. Michael Rishoff filed a claim with the California Labor Board for back wages. Robyn Rishoff filed a verbal complaint against her former employers with the California Department of Social Services, charging the school where she worked with at least 13 violations.

Harriet Russo taught at a California Learning Center from January, 1980, to March, 1985, when she was fired by Wyckoff. She accused Wyckoff and Hamilton of slandering her, and told investigators that her husband, Richard, had telephoned Wyckoff and warned her that he would seek a court injunction against her school and close it down unless the attacks stopped.

According to the government’s complaint, Wyckoff and Hamilton also were having other troubles during the beginning of 1985: school enrollment was dropping, employees were resigning, vandalism was occurring at their schools, and they had received threatening phone calls. They thought there was an underground element among their staff members intent on taking over.

Mercenary Training School

They turned to Franklin Joseph Camper for help.

Both recalled in interviews with Special Agent Tom S. Miller of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that they had watched a televised segment on Camper and the operation of his mercenary training school in June or July last summer, and became interested when he said he conducted investigations for businesses and really wanted to help people solve their problems. They called Camper in Alabama.

Camper, who has appeared on the television program “60 Minutes” and has been the subject of national publicity in magazine and newspaper articles about the operation of his paramilitary school, agreed to come to California.

He told ATF Special Agent Larry T. Luckey that he was hired by Wyckoff and Hamilton to locate and identify people who were making harassing phone calls and performing acts of vandalism at the schools.

12 ‘Suspects’

He flew to San Diego with an airline ticket supplied by the two women, traveled by rental car and stayed in motels, at their expense. And on Aug. 9 of last year, he was joined by Johnson, Cuneo and Hedgecorth, who had driven from Alabama to Southern California.

Camper said he and the others drove around trying to locate 12 “suspects” on a list supplied by Wyckoff and Hamilton, and succeeded in talking to four, including Robyn Rishoff and Harriet Russo.

According to court documents, Camper said he explained to the school owners that he had talked with the four and that he could not be of real assistance. So, he left Cuneo and Hedgecorth as bodyguards and returned home.

According to the government, however, ATF Special Agent Roger J. Guthrie, who was posing as a student at Camper’s Hueytown school to investigate possible violations of the federal firearms laws, overheard Cuneo, Johnson and Hedgecorth discuss a proposal by Camper to pay each man $1,000 to go to California to do some “unconventional action” at a private school. The agent said he was asked if he would like to go along.

Conversations Recorded

Guthrie also was present, according to investigators, during tape-recorded conversations in Birmingham last October when Cuneo allegedly admitted that the purpose of going to California was “to harm people.”

School owners Wyckoff and Hamilton have both acknowledged in interviews with agents that they spent an estimated $3,000 or $3,500 to pay the expenses of Camper and his team while they were in California, but both insisted that they did not participate in any firebombings and that they have no knowledge of any occurring in San Bernardino County in August, 1985.

However, Wyckoff’s daughter, Shirley Wright, told an investigator earlier this month that she had heard her mother and Hamilton say on numerous occasions that authorities could not link them with Camper and the others because they paid hotels, airline tickets and everything else in cash.

‘Don’t Shoot’

Wright recalled meeting a “Bill’ and a “Jimmy” at her mother’s Dana Point house last August. As she approached the home on one occasion, she said, her mother rushed out and shouted at the two bodyguards hidden in the branches of a tree, “Don’t shoot.”

She said that Wyckoff and Hamilton had told her that they were carrying concealed firearms in their purse with ammunition clips in their bras, apparently believing that “this method is legal.”

Contributing to this story was Times staff writer Nancy Wride in Orange County.