Car Firebomber Gets 14 Years in Prison

Amid tight courthouse security Monday, a federal judge sentenced the operator of an Alabama mercenary camp 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 in Los Angeles 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. District Judge Alicemarie H. 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 using destructive devices during a federal crime of violence. The first jury hearing his case deadlocked last November.

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

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

In a passionate 50-minute speech to the court Monday, Camper denied his guilt, saying, “You can’t admit what you didn’t do.”

In April, Camper’s girlfriend, Lee Ann Faulk, 28, was acquitted of charges in the case. Two other associates pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. A third associate convicted with Camper in April is also awaiting sentencing.

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.