Abortion Clinic Bombing Case : Tape Reveals Owens Tried to Limit Testimony

In a jailhouse visit last month, the Rev. Dorman Owens urged Eric Svelmoe not to mention the names of other church members if he decided to cooperate with government officials probing an alleged conspiracy to bomb a San Diego abortion clinic, according to a transcript of a tape recording of the meeting.

The transcript, made public Monday, shows for the first time the full extent to which Owens and Svelmoe debated the weight of evidence against members of Owens’ Bible Missionary Fellowship in the attempted bombing, the reliability of a government informant, and the likelihood that the government’s prosecution would prevail.

In addition, Owens and Svelmoe--a church member who planted a bomb at the clinic--compared the attempted bombing to other celebrated court cases, including those involving Sagon Penn and Bernhard Goetz.

Recording Made Clear

The transcript, filed in U.S. District Court, was drawn from a recording of the Nov. 2 and 3 jailhouse visits in which Svelmoe secretly wore a tiny microphone. Until Monday, the contents of the tapes had been very difficult to comprehend because of their extremely poor recording quality. But experts were able to electronically enhance the voices on the tape to clear up the confusion.

In the written dialogue, Owens and Svelmoe discuss how Svelmoe was being prodded by federal investigators to reveal the full involvement of members of the Bible Missionary Fellowship church in Santee in the attempted bombing last summer of the Family Planning Associates Medical Group on Alvarado Road.

Owens and Svelmoe discussed whether Svelmoe should give the specifics about various church members to government prosecutors. Owens repeatedly urged him to first talk it over with his lawyer. And Owens also wanted Svelmoe to wait to hear the advice from attorneys representing other church members.

“If there’s any possible way to exclude those others it would sure be . . . Phew,” Owens said.

But Svelmoe said that if he did talk to government officials about the case, he was worried about how his testimony would compare with “what kind of story” other church members gave about the alleged conspiracy.

But Owens said, “According to what they’re sayin’ is they’re not gonna tell any stories.”

The Santee pastor also advised Svelmoe, “You know in testimonies, you can always say, I don’t remember or I don’t recall or . . . “

Owens also asked Svelmoe if he “gave any thought” to telling police that he knew the bomb would not go off when he placed it at the clinic last July.

But Svelmoe answered that police already had realized that three fuses had been lit and burned down, and that the fuses apparently went out before the bomb could detonate.

Svelmoe a Key Witness

As it turned out, Svelmoe has cooperated with the government. He has also pleaded guilty in the case and is expected to be a key witness when seven other church members, including Owens, stand trial in the alleged conspiracy.

Owens, in addition, has been charged with witness tampering for his alleged comments to Svelmoe during the tape-recorded visits.

According to the transcript, Owens intimated that the case can be won with a good lawyer. He mentioned Sagon Penn, twice acquitted in a controversial San Diego police shooting.

“There’s no doubt about that guy was guilty as sin,” Owens said. “He just had a vendetta for cops and he just, he was gonna get even with ‘em, that’s all, and he, you know, they probably beat him up pretty good, but he got away with that.

“Now how’d he ever get away with that? You would never thought that guy had a . . . That just shows ya that you got the right kind of lawyer . . . and now he’s a free man.”

They also compared the case to that of the New York subway vigilante, Bernhard Goetz. “There’s no justice in that” either, Owens said.

Owens and Svelmoe also wondered if Owens’ home has been watched by government agents and whether his phone was tapped.

Then Owens urged Svelmoe to wait before agreeing to cooperate with the government in the case. “They don’t have any evidence at all . . . ,” Owens said. “I think it’s one, one of those deals uh, you know, I, I think they want to make people think that they (know) a lot more than they know.”

Expect Indictments

But Svelmoe said his attorney has repeatedly told him over the last couple of weeks to expect three or four indictments of other church members.

“Yep, they said that,” Owens agreed. “They’ve been sayin’ that a long time and it’s possible.”

Owens said that, while the government’s informant “evidently talked about the meetings at the church” prior to the bombing attempt, “nothin’ was ever brought up at these meetings” about who was “in on it.”

And Owens said the informant only heard things, but never participated in any church meetings. “If they got a good enough lawyer they can, you know, they can make a jury see that she, she never saw anything, she heard something or maybe she heard it,” Owens said.

Owens also implied that the informant’s word alone is not enough because “the girl is psychiatric” and that her psychiatrist probably talked her into coming forward.

In weighing the depth of the government’s evidence against them, Svelmoe said he has overheard government officials talking about having United Parcel Service receipts for the bomb components and records of long-distance phone bills.

“If they can tie the two together, then that’s, that’s condemning,” Svelmoe said. “My personal opinion, I, I think that uh, they probably got enough for the conviction.”

Svelmoe also said he worried about going to trial before U.S. District Judge Earl B. Gilliam.

“The judge is the one who makes the decision about time (length of sentence) and he’s gonna be under, under pressure,” Svelmoe said. “I found out a few things about the judge, his background, um, he’s a Democrat, pretty liberal, so he’s, he’s probably for abortion.”

Owens agreed that he thought the government had ulterior motives in prosecuting church members.

“They’d like to close the church down, is what they’d like to do,” Owens said. “That’d really be a political, be a political deal. . . . If they could get to me, see, that’s the main thing they’re trying to do. They’ve already said that.”

But Owens said he believed he had God on his side.

“We have one thing in our favor,” Owens said at one point in the conversations. “That is God is able to do some things if we will trust Him to do it. That’s what we’ve got in our favor . . . a miracle. We haven’t had a lot of those lately, but uh, it looks like we’re entitled to one or two, doesn’t it?”