Minister, Six Others Seized in Bomb Case

The outspoken pastor of a fundamentalist Baptist congregation and six of his followers were arrested by federal authorities Thursday and charged with conspiring to bomb a San Diego clinic where abortions are performed.

The pastor, the Rev. Dorman Owens, 54, was also charged with tampering with a witness in the case in an alleged effort to persuade the witness to withhold testimony.

The congregation, the Bible Missionary Fellowship Church in Santee, about 18 miles northeast of central San Diego, is well known for regularly picketing family planning and abortion clinics in San Diego and for taking part in boisterous anti-gay demonstrations, particularly to protest the city’s annual Gay Pride Day parade.

Often at the forefront has been Owens, who has attracted widespread local attention for galvanizing Christian fundamentalist support against San Diego-area family-planning clinics.

Although the charges filed Thursday are directed only toward one attempted bombing, in which a device was planted but did not explode, federal prosecutors allege that Owens and six others conspired to bomb two other organizations, including a Planned Parenthood office and a feminist health-care center in San Diego called the Womancare Clinic. At least one of the alleged meetings used to plan the bombings occurred at the church, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The charges contained in a federal grand jury indictment against Owens, plus the associate pastor of the church and five other people who regularly attend services at the Bible Missionary Fellowship, stem from the attempted bombing July 27 of the Family Planning Associates Medical Group in San Diego.

At that time, a police surveillance team that had staked out the clinic after it had received threats arrested a member of the church, 32-year-old Eric Everett Svelmoe, for allegedly placing a pipe bomb taped to a two-gallon can of gasoline on the doorstep at the medical office. When Svelmoe was arrested after he drove away from the empty clinic about 3 a.m., he was wearing a woman’s wig and camouflage makeup on his face and was carrying a .357-Magnum pistol.

Burned Out

The fuse on the bomb burned out, and the bomb never exploded.

In affidavits filed after his arrest, San Diego police and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said Svelmoe, a carpenter, had confessed to manufacturing the bomb in his El Cajon mobile home.

Svelmoe has remained in custody at the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center, charged with various federal violations of firearms and explosives laws.

While federal officials declined Thursday to say whether Svelmoe, who is scheduled to stand trial Dec. 7, is cooperating with the government’s investigation of the alleged conspiracy, a separate indictment returned only against Owens accuses the preacher of witness tampering as a result of visits he made to Svelmoe in jail on Monday and Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Owens “attempted to influence . . . Svelmoe to withhold testimony from an official proceeding.”

“The indictment charges that Owens engaged in misleading conduct designed to delay and prevent the communication of information about the bombing conspiracy to federal officials,” prosecutors said.

Owens and the other defendants declined comment Thursday, but at the time of Svelmoe’s arrest, Owens described him as “a kind, dedicated Christian and a patriotic American. . . .”

“I’m sure he was driven by the best of motives, that is, to save human life . . . save babies. . . . All I know is that I have never instructed anybody to bomb a clinic,” Owens said at the time.

More Hearings

At an afternoon hearing before U.S. Magistrate Barry Ted Moskowitz, all the defendants--dressed in bright white prison overalls--pleaded innocent pending more hearings next week. A $100,000 bond was set for the release of all the defendants except Owens, who--because of both the bomb conspiracy and witness-tampering allegations--will be kept in custody until a detention hearing is held Tuesday.

Others indicted are the Rev. Kenneth Neal Felder, 39, of El Cajon, the associate pastor; Jeanne Kreipal, 37, a Santee housewife; Christopher Eugene Harmon, 24, an apartment house manager in Spring Valley; his wife, Robin Lynn Harmon, 22, manager of a beauty supply company; Randall Ray Sullenger, 35, of El Cajon, and his wife, Cheryl Dean Sullenger, 32.

They are all charged with conspiracy to bomb and commit arson, unlawful possession of a destructive device, manufacturing a destructive device, interstate transportation of explosives and attempted bombing and arson. The maximum penalty for each of the six counts is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

According to the indictment, the seven defendants planned the bombing between May and July of this year, with at least one meeting taking place at the church and another allegedly occurring at Owens’ home in El Cajon, supposedly attended by Owens, Felder and Svelmoe.

Gun Powder

Starting in early May, the indictment alleges that the defendants bought chemicals, gun powder and other components to construct a pipe bomb.

Owens, a former truck driver from Fort Worth, Tex., established the congregation, along with his wife and another couple, in 1971 to help alcoholics and derelicts. Within a few years, the congregation began demonstrating in front of gay bars and churches, X-rated movie theaters and abortion clinics.

Owens was arrested in 1984 and 1985 for violating a court order that limited his picketing in front of a clinic that performed abortions. The court restricted picketing at the Birth Control Institute because Owens and his followers would yell “baby killers” and “butcher shop” to people entering and leaving the clinic.

The clinic was firebombed twice--once in 1984 and again in 1985--when someone threw Molotov cocktails through a window, both times leading to fires that badly damaged the building. Owens denied any involvement in the bombings and no arrests were ever made.