Mercenary Leader Given 14-Year Term in Firebomb Attacks

Amid extremely tight courthouse security Monday, a federal judge sentenced an Alabama mercenary camp operator to 14 years in prison for firebombing two cars at the request of two Orange County schoolteachers.

U.S. marshals armed with shotguns stood guard outside the federal courthouse and near the courtroom where Franklin Joseph Camper was sentenced. Observers entering the courtroom passed through metal detectors, and their belongings were searched. The marshals said the security measures were in response to rumors that Camper’s mercenary friends might try to help him escape.

At the hearing, U.S. Dist. Judge Alicemarie Huber Stotler said she “did not believe the testimony of Mr. Camper. Mr. Camper will always have an explanation for anything and everything.”

In April, at his second trial, Camper, 40, was convicted of conspiracy, racketeering and weapons charges. The first jury hearing his case deadlocked last November.

The charges stemmed from the August, 1985, firebombing of cars belonging to former employees of a chain of private schools in Orange and San Bernardino counties owned by two Dana Point women. The cars belonged to two San Bernardino County teachers fired by the school owners.

Before his arrest in May, 1986, Camper and his family operated a mercenary training school in the backwoods near Hueytown, Ala.

Made Passionate Speech

In a passionate, 50-minute speech before the sentencing, Camper denied being guilty.

“You can’t admit what you didn’t do,” he said.

“In California, I did not authorize or give those men permission to burn any cars,” Camper added, referring to three colleagues also convicted on the firebombing charges.

Camper, a Vietnam veteran, said his training camp “was an intelligence asset for this U.S. government.” He said the school was used as a cover to “stop bombings and assassinations” and for “covert missions for the U.S.”

He said his co-defendants were “criminals” with long records and “I needed criminals to use as a front to infiltrate criminal organizations.”

Government agents assigned to the case scoffed at Camper’s story, saying they checked with the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency and other organizations for any information to back up his version of the facts. No evidence was presented to the court or the jury to support his contentions.

5-Year Sentence

An associate convicted with Camper in April, William D. Hedgcorth, 23, of Birmingham, Ala., was also sentenced Monday to five years in prison for his role in the bombings. Two other associates have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

In April, Camper’s girlfriend, Lee Ann Faulk, 28, was acquitted of conspiracy, racketeering and weapons charges in the case.

The two Orange County schoolteachers who hired Camper to provide “unconventional security” previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. Stotler sentenced Elizabeth Leta Hamilton, 39, to seven years in prison. Charlotte Ruth Wyckoff, 52, is scheduled to be sentenced next Monday. Camper insisted in an earlier interview that he was on a secret government mission when he flew to California to help Wyckoff and Hamilton in August, 1985.

However, he said his security clearance prohibited him from introducing evidence about the mission in court. Camper said he has worked on and off as a government agent since he left the U.S. Army in 1969.

His wife, Mavis, who attended the hearing, said she wasn’t “doing too well” after the sentence was imposed.