8 Indicted on Charges They Ran Terrorist Ring Tied to Bombings

Eight people have been charged with conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government by operating a terrorist ring responsible for a decade of bombings, bank robberies and police shootings throughout the Northeast, prosecutors said Thursday.

The Justice Department, in announcing the federal grand jury indictment, said the five men and three women, members of a radical group originally known as the Sam Melville-Jonathan Jackson Unit and later the United Freedom Front, bombed 19 courthouses, banks, corporations and military installations in Massachusetts and New York from 1976 to 1984.

After each attack--including the 1976 bombing of the Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston that injured 22 people--the group issued communiques claiming responsibility and advocating the government’s overthrow, the indictment handed up Wednesday said.

$900,000 Stolen

The group also allegedly robbed at gunpoint nearly $900,000 from 10 banks in Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, New York and Virginia starting in 1975 to finance their operation.

In addition, the indictment said the ring held organized weapons practice “in anticipation of armed confrontation with police and other law enforcement officers.” Group members allegedly killed New Jersey state Trooper Philip Lamonaco in 1981 and tried to kill two Massachusetts troopers in North Attleboro in 1982 and a Portland, Me., police officer in 1975.

Each defendant is charged with two counts of racketeering and one count of conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government by force. Each racketeering charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. The conspiracy charge carries a maximum 20-year term and $20,000 fine.

All of the defendants are in custody, either awaiting trial or serving sentences in some of the crimes cited in the conspiracy indictment, Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Loucks said.

The indictment charges that four Maine residents, Raymond L. Levasseur, Patricia H. Gros, Thomas W. Manning and his wife, Carol Ann Manning, formed the group. Massachusetts residents Jaan K. Laaman, Christopher E. King, Richard C. Williams and Barbara J. Curzi allegedly joined later.

No arraignment dates were set on the charges.