Costa Mesa Man Admits 8 IRS Bombings : Investigation: Task force finds ‘virtual bomb factory’ in his garage. The engineer had long held a grudge against the agency.

An electrical engineer from Costa Mesa who sought revenge against the Internal Revenue Service was arrested Thursday and charged with twice bombing an IRS office in Los Angeles, authorities said.

After his arrest, Dean Harvey Hicks, 45, confessed to those and six other anti-IRS bombings in Los Angeles, Orange and Fresno counties, Assistant U.S. Atty. George Newhouse said during Hicks’ arraignment Thursday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Reichmann in Los Angeles.

Hicks was described by a federal source, who requested anonymity, as an intelligent engineer who showed no erratic behavior at work--”but he lived for these periodic attacks on the IRS.”

No one was injured in the eight attacks, most involving small pipe bombs, which occurred between March, 1986, and last April.

Lawrence G. Lawler, the special agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, told a news conference that Hicks “was unhappy with the IRS.”

IRS auditors in a Culver City office that was later the target of one of the bombs had disallowed $8,500 in deductions to the Universal Life Church on Hicks’ 1981 tax return and assessed him a substantial penalty, according to an FBI affidavit.

“This apparently set him off in ways that wouldn’t set other people off,” IRS Assistant District Director Brian McMahon told reporters at the FBI office in Westwood.

Calling him a danger to the community, Reichmann ordered Hicks held without bail at the downtown Metropolitan Detention Center.

Hicks, a bachelor who lived alone with a Siamese cat, had no previous criminal record. He is a $55,000-a-year employee of Loral Corp. in Newport Beach. The New York-based firm makes electronic gear--including missile systems--for the military.

Authorities from a joint federal-local task force arrested Hicks at his one-story home on Iowa Avenue after he returned from his daily morning bicycle ride.

Investigators said they found nothing unusual in Hicks’ house, but were stunned when they entered the garage. There, Newhouse told Reichmann, they found “a virtual bomb factory,” containing partially assembled timing devices and black powder.

Neighbors described Hicks as a “bizarre” man who sometimes mowed his lawn at 4 a.m. and appeared obsessed with his opposition to “the gas meter reader, the city building inspector or anyone who came on his property asking questions,” said Michael Weller, a neighbor.

Just before 8 a.m. Thursday, neighbors were awakened when agents from the FBI, Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms pulled up to Hicks’ home at 3293 Iowa St. Hicks was standing in the driveway as their cars screeched to a halt.

According to witnesses, Hicks said nothing and put his hands in the air. He was immediately handcuffed and taken into custody.

He was charged in the bombings of IRS offices on Olympic Boulevard in September, 1988, and February, 1990.

Investigators said they were pointed to Hicks after a 1974 Dodge pickup truck used in the 1990 attack was traced to a Hawaiian Gardens couple. They said they sold the vehicle to Hicks and described him to a Los Angeles police artist, who put together a composite drawing.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said bomb experts “misjudged” the potency of the device Hicks had allegedly designed and placed in the truck. The “truck bomb,” which did not fully detonate, actually consisted of 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate in 55-gallon barrels. If it had exploded fully, Gates said, “it would have completely wiped out a two-block area” and created a crater “10- to 15-feet deep. . . . In other words, it would have killed a lot of people.”

The latest attack linked to Hicks was on April 1. Thirteen small bombs were fired toward the Fresno IRS processing center from a homemade mortar-type launcher. Nine of the bombs exploded. The duds helped authorities discover how they were manufactured--including wiring patterns similar to those used at the aerospace firm where Hicks was employed.

The roof of the center and several cars were damaged. The building houses 5,000 IRS employees.

Letters were sent last year to the IRS, a bank and a newspaper claiming that a group called “UP THE IRS, INC.,” was responsible for the bombs here and in Fresno. FBI experts confirmed last month that Hicks’ handwriting “matches the handwriting on the envelopes” in which the letters were sent, the affidavit said.

Hicks’ arrest ended a three-year investigation by a task force that included FBI, IRS and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, Los Angeles police officers, and Los Angeles and Orange County sheriff’s deputies.

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.