U.S. Withdraws Immunity for Suspect in Bombing of Car at Nuclear Laboratory

A man charged with bombing a car outside the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was promised immunity from prosecution after falsely claiming that another bomb had been placed at a Los Angeles nuclear facility, a prosecutor said Friday.

After being granted immunity, Stephen Michael Dwyer led federal agents to a cache of explosives in San Benito County and other evidence of the November, 1987, bombing. He was then arrested because his story about the Los Angeles bomb proved false, Assistant U.S. Atty. Joel Levin said.

The disclosure came at a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Wayne Brazil, who ordered Dwyer held without bail on charges stemming from the Livermore bombing.

Federal Public Defender Barry Portman said he had not previously heard any reason for the government’s withdrawal of Dwyer’s immunity.

Pleaded Innocent

Dwyer, 40, of Palm Desert, a self-described member of the Nuclear Liberation Front, pleaded innocent Friday to charges punishable by up to 40 years in prison. A federal grand jury has accused him of illegally transporting explosives interstate, making and possessing a bomb and damaging federal property.

The Livermore laboratory is a major center for the design of U.S. nuclear weapons. Shortly after midnight Nov. 28, a dynamite bomb demolished a laboratory employee’s car, damaged three other cars, broke dozens of windows and scattered debris for 400 yards. No one was injured.

A man called the San Francisco Associated Press bureau the next day and said he and his friend had carried out the bombing for the Nuclear Liberation Front. The FBI said later that it had never heard of the group and believed Dwyer might be the only member.

The FBI said Dwyer was an independent mineral miner in Nevada and bought materials for the bomb at a shop in Reno. Portman said Dwyer had worked since 1985 as a draftsman for a civil engineering firm in Palm Springs.

Wanted to Surrender

The public defender said Dwyer went to a Van Nuys lawyer, A. Brent Carruth, on April 5, discussed his activities and said he wanted to surrender. Carruth then contacted a Justice Department official in Washington and J. Stephen Czuleger, head of the U.S. attorney’s anti-terrorism section in Los Angeles, and reached an agreement about immunity, Portman said.

“The immunity was based on his representation that there was a bomb at a nuclear facility in the Los Angeles area,” Levin said, without identifying the facility. “The impression was that there was a bomb ticking. . . . Of course, there was no bomb.”

Levin said Dwyer had been promised that he would not be prosecuted based on anything he said to the agents. But once his claim about the Los Angeles bomb proved false, the deal was off, the prosecutor said.