Suspect in Plot on Bush Described as Successful Real Estate Agent

Friends and family of an Oxnard man under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service following an informant’s tip that he was plotting to assassinate President Bush described him Wednesday as a successful real estate broker who likes to collect semiautomatic weapons for recreation and investment purposes.

Thomas Robert Ward, 45, the son of former Oxnard Mayor Carl Ward Sr., is a successful commercial real estate broker who “never gave us any indication that this would be brewing,” said John Davis, a fellow real estate agent. “It’s just so unlike Tom.”

Davis said he and his wife were “totally shocked” on learning that a police informant alleged that Ward said he had scouted land around the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Simi Valley for a site from which to shoot the President. Bush and several former Presidents are expected to attend the library opening Nov. 4.

Acting on a tip, federal and Ventura County investigators arrested Ward outside his apartment Sunday. Inside, they found a large collection of weapons, including 12 machine guns, several handguns and about 27,000 rounds of ammunition.

Ward appeared Monday before U.S. Magistrate Carolyn Turchin and was ordered held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles without bail.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Uttam Dhillon said he plans to pursue a federal grand jury indictment of Ward on charges of possessing an unregistered machine gun.

The Secret Service is continuing to investigate reports that Ward planned to assassinate Bush. That allegation could be added to the indictment if evidence supports it, Dhillon said.

Meanwhile, Ward’s friends and family rallied to his defense.

Davis said that Ward had engineered a multimillion-dollar real estate deal in the late 1980s to persuade 20 property owners to sell 2,100 acres of beachfront land to make way for a new residential community.

Ward had never expressed any ill will toward President Bush, said Oxnard gun shop owner Tony Montemorra, who sold Ward several of the semiautomatic rifles seized Sunday at Ward’s apartment.

Like many gun owners, he “felt slightly betrayed” when Bush signed legislation restricting the import of some weapons, Montemorra said.

“I know he made phone calls, like a lot of us did, to (Bush) saying we respectfully hope you would not do such and such a thing, because you said you would not,” he said.

Ward’s brother, Carl E. Ward Jr., said of the charges, “It’s just total bull.”

Carl Ward said he and his younger brother began shooting recreationally at age 10 with the Oxnard Junior Rifle Club.

“He’s not violent, he’s not homicidal, he’s not mentally ill, he’s a normal guy whose interests lean to collecting and firing guns.”