Video of Bomb Damage Shown at IRS Trial

Prosecutors offered a vivid demonstration Wednesday in U.S. District Court of the carnage they say could have been wreaked had a homemade bomb exploded last year outside an Internal Revenue Service office in West Los Angeles.

As part of the case against Dean H. Hicks, a former aerospace engineer from Costa Mesa who has pleaded guilty to four attacks on IRS offices, officials presented a videotape in which they detonated a “truck bomb” filled with ammonium nitrate.

In the video, prepared by Los Angeles Police Department bomb squad experts in the Mojave Desert, a truck loaded with 1,800 pounds of the chemical exploded into pieces, creating an orange fireball that officers estimated at 300 feet in diameter and hurling shrapnel as far as 650 feet.

Assistant U.S. Atty. George B. Newhouse contended that a similar bomb--had it exploded outside the IRS office on West Olympic Boulevard where Hicks left it--could have leveled two city blocks, killed dozens of people and created a huge crater.

Hicks, 46, whose smoldering bomb was extinguished by firefighters before it blew up, has insisted he only meant to express his anger with the tax agency, not hurt anyone.

Hicks, who is facing a maximum prison term of 43 years and a $1.25-million fine, was scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday. But he was granted a continuance until Dec. 3 while his attorney arranges for an explosives expert to testify that the bomb would not have caused the damage alleged by prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Laughlin Waters also ruled that Hicks, who is being represented by a deputy public defender at taxpayer expense, has sufficient funds to hire a lawyer. He was ordered to pay the full cost for his attorney’s services.

Hicks was arrested July 11 and charged with bombing IRS offices in Los Angeles, Orange and Fresno counties. No one was injured in any of the attacks, reportedly sparked when the agency disallowed a deduction for a contribution to the Universal Life Church and assessed him a hefty penalty.