Metzger Thumbs Nose at Grand Jury Probe

A defiant and angry Tom Metzger, the white supremacist from Fallbrook, was called--and refused--to testify Thursday before a federal grand jury apparently investigating the September bombing of the San Diego federal courthouse.

Acting as his own attorney, Metzger said he appeared before the panel for three minutes--at the downtown courthouse itself--and declined to answer any questions from federal prosecutors, citing his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.

Prosecutors “evidently were investigating the little firecracker that went off here,” he said, a reference to the Sept. 15 pipe bomb that damaged the front entrance to the courthouse. After his appearance before the panel, Metzger, 52, a television repairman, said he knew nothing about the bombing and added, “I’m sure nobody around me knows, either.”

FBI agents already had questioned Carl E. Straight, a Metzger bodyguard, in connection with the bombing, and called him and several other associates of Metzger’s to testify Thursday before the grand jury. All 11 people--including Metzger’s son, John, 22--declined to answer questions, Tom Metzger said.

Prosecutors promptly set a hearing for today before Chief U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson, most likely to inquire whether Metzger and his associates have a legal basis for claiming the privilege, and ordered Metzger and the others to appear.

“I’m prepared to bump heads with these people until hell freezes over,” Metzger said, referring to federal authorities. “They don’t like me, and I don’t like them.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns, the prosecutor investigating the bombing, declined Thursday to comment on the case. All proceedings before the grand jury are done in secret.

The confidential grand jury proceedings mark one of several court actions in which Metzger--head of White Aryan Resistance, the organization he founded to promote racial hate--has recently been involved.

In October, a jury in Portland, Ore., found Tom Metzger, John Metzger, WAR and two skinheads liable for $12.5 million in the beating death of Mulugeta Seraw, a 27-year-old Ethiopian immigrant living in Portland whose skull was split open when he was attacked by skinheads in November, 1988.

The jury found that the two skinheads--who pleaded guilty in the slaying--were incited by the Metzgers and WAR’s racial-hate campaign.

Tom Metzger, who calls himself a “white separatist,” is appealing the judgment. Meanwhile, lawyers have been busy in various courts trying to get to the millions.

The Sept. 15 bombing--caused by a pipe bomb placed near the Front Street entrance to the five-story courthouse in downtown San Diego--damaged the building’s two front doors, which were recently replaced.

On Oct. 16, the federal grand jury indicted an unemployed Ocean Beach man who reportedly claimed credit for the bombing, charging him with sending threatening letters to a San Diego television station, a civil rights activist and a lawyer.

Mark George Somes, 44, was not indicted, however, on charges connected to the bombing. A source close to the case said authorities do not believe he was responsible.

Tom Metzger was not originally called Thursday by the grand jury to testify. But when he and his son, John, appeared in a show of support for their associates who had been called, they were quickly served with subpoenas, Tom Metzger said.

Metzger said his appearance was brief because he told the panel, “ ‘I don’t respect grand juries.’ ”