Ferro Guilty of 1 Explosives Charge : Trial: The jury found that the member of the Alpha 66 Cuban exile group possessed C-4 plastic but didn’t have the ingredients for a bomb. He will be sentenced June 17.

Cuban exile Robert Ferro was found guilty last week in Pomona Superior Court of one felony explosives-related charge and innocent of a second.

“I can’t believe it,” Ferro, 47, said in the courthouse hallway afterward. “I denied it all. I denied it to the officers. They didn’t take fingerprints. And another man confessed to it.”

After 2 1/2 days of deliberations, the jury convicted the former Green Beret of possessing a plastic explosive but found him not guilty of possessing ingredients to make a bomb.

The charges stemmed from a July 29, 1991, raid by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies of Ferro’s abandoned chicken ranch on East Phillips Boulevard in Pomona. Deputies seized five pounds of C-4, a putty-like explosive, and assorted paraphernalia investigators said could be used to make a bomb.

The explosives were used for military training at the chicken ranch, Deputy Barney Villa testified during the weeklong trial.

Ferro acknowledged that he belonged to the Cuban exile group Alpha 66, whose members seek the overthrow of Fidel Castro, their homeland’s Communist dictator, Villa testified.

Villa said Ferro told him after being arrested in his Upland home on the morning of the raid that the ranch was used to train Mexican men who were to be sent to the Caribbean island to fight Castro’s forces.

But Ferro--who said he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Special Forces and conducted secret military raids in Laos, Cambodia, and Cuba--testified that he never made such statements and denied even knowing that the plastic explosive was at the ranch.

Defense attorney Peter Scalisi said during the trial that deputies could not prove that the C-4 belonged to Ferro because they failed to take fingerprints from the explosive or the bag containing it. The explosive belonged to Jamie Wolden, a heroin addict on whom Ferro took pity and gave a job helping to dismantle the chicken ranch, Scalisi argued.

Wolden was arrested the day before the raid by Baldwin Park Police, who found a small wad of C-4 in his pocket. He was later convicted and sent to prison for possession of explosives.

Although Wolden reportedly admitted to a private investigator that the larger amount at the ranch also belonged to him, the confession was not allowed in court.

The convicted felon also refused to testify during Ferro’s trial. After the verdict, jurors said that Wolden’s refusal harmed Ferro’s case.

“What’s (Ferro) doing with Wolden?” juror Brian Heath, 30, of Pomona, said Wednesday. “We kept going back to that.”

“I think he could have gotten off if Wolden had appeared,” agreed juror Jesse Juarez, 26, also of Pomona.

Both jurors said they believed Ferro’s statements that the bomb ingredients were props for a low-budget, Spanish-language action-adventure movie that was shot at the ranch. Scenes from the film were shown during the trial.

When sentenced June 17, Ferro could receive up to six years in state prison.