Prosecutors to Seek Maximum Sentence for Fugitive Bomber : Courts: Ex-police officer, arrested Friday in Oxnard, would face up to a 32-year term. He will be asked today if he plans to fight extradition to New York.

New York prosecutors said Monday that they plan to seek the maximum term of 32 years for fugitive bomber Joseph Hamilton Harper, a former police officer who admitted setting off four explosions in 1978 to prove his prowess as an investigator.

Harper, arrested at his Oxnard beach home Friday by the FBI after more than 13 years on the run, will be asked today in Ventura County Municipal Court whether he plans to fight extradition to New York.

“The ball is in his court,” said Dist. Atty. Frank Phillips of Orange County, N. Y., who followed the case for years before the FBI stepped in 10 months ago. “If he waives extradition, we will send police agents out there this week to get him.”

But if Harper, 45, chooses to oppose his return to New York, Phillips would have to persuade New York Gov. Mario Cuomo to sign a warrant for Harper’s arrest, and California Gov. Pete Wilson would also have to allow the transfer, Phillips said.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Phillips said. “If he’d come to his sentencing (in 1980), he’d be out by now.”

Kevin J. McGee, Ventura County chief deputy district attorney, said his office does not typically involve itself with extradition cases and had not been contacted by New York prosecutors.

Harper had been living in Oxnard and working as a home appliance repairman for about two years under the name of Donald Nagy, a childhood acquaintance.

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Nagy’s father, Frank Nagy of MonroeY., said that he has known Harper since he was a child and that Harper and his son had worked together at the local telephone company before Harper was hired as a police officer in nearby Woodbury.

Donald Nagy “is very upset about the whole situation,” Frank Nagy said Monday. “When Harper took off, he took my son’s name with him.”

Meanwhile, a local attorney visiting Harper at Ventura County Jail on Monday said he did not know whether Harper would oppose his return to New York.

“He hasn’t made up his mind,” attorney Randall Smith, a onetime public defender who does not officially represent Harper, said after the 20-minute visit. “He’s contemplating that right now.”

Smith, who now practices personal injury law in Ventura, said he was visiting Harper only to assure Harper’s wife, Debbie Tomer, that Harper was all right and to tell Harper that his wife and two children were well.

“I’m only acting as a liaison here,” said Smith, who said he has known Harper as a casual acquaintance for several months.

Harper, who declined an interview request Monday, is being held in Ventura County Jail without bail on a federal warrant alleging unlawful flight.

FBI officials said that charge would be dismissed in favor of a state-level bail-jumping charge, which carries a penalty of up to seven years. No charges will likely be brought against Tomer, who has two children with Harper, Phillips said.

Harper pleaded guilty to causing four separate explosions that erupted over a 10-day period in August, 1978, in and around Woodbury, a small Hudson River Valley town about 60 miles northwest of New York City.

Harper, one of fewer than 10 officers on the Woodbury Police Department, targeted railroad tracks, a sewage treatment plant, a utility substation and a parking lot with dynamite. He caused about $200,000 in damage. No one was injured in the bombings.

Within a month, New York investigators had linked Harper to the explosions, in part because he was always first to arrive at the scenes.

“He had some kind of ego problem with the state police,” Phillips said. “Part of it was his desire to prove he was as good as them.”

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Harper pleaded guilty to a felony criminal mischief charge and faced a maximum of 25 years in state prison when he was due to be sentenced early in 1980.

But he failed to show up for sentencing, instead fleeing the state with Tomer and taking the name of his onetime telephone company colleague.

The Orange County district attorney’s office issued a warrant for jumping his $20,000 bail, and investigators spent years unsuccessfully trying to find him.

Kenneth Maxwell, an FBI supervising agent in New York, said Harper apparently first fled to Florida, where he spent up to 10 years living under the assumed identity.

But after being profiled on “America’s Most Wanted,” Harper in 1990 moved to Slidell, La., a suburb of New Orleans, Maxwell said.

Harper, described by Maxwell as an intelligent and cagey electronics whiz, moved to the Oxnard area in the latter half of 1991.

New York state police officials were relieved to hear that Harper had been taken into custody.

“It’s a big deal as far as we’re concerned because he’s a police officer that went bad,” said Woodbury Police Chief Theodore Jones, who was Harper’s sergeant at the time of the bombings. He said Harper had part-time police experience before being hired in Woodbury four years before the blasts.

Relatives answering the door Monday at the two-story, $1,175-a-month Corbina Way home in Oxnard declined to discuss the case. A late-model taupe-colored Cadillac bearing Louisiana license plates was parked in front of the rented home, which was draped with Halloween decorations.

Neighbors said they were surprised to hear about a fugitive living among them.

“He was very friendly and pleasant,” said one resident, who asked not to be named. “But at this point, everybody’s just kind of curious about what he did and why he did it.”

Months before Harper migrated to Southern California, in the summer of 1991, Phillips was contacted by a Pennsylvania attorney who said that he represented Harper and that Harper wanted to turn himself in.

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The prosecutor balked at an offer Harper made through that attorney.

“He wanted us to offer him two years,” Phillips said. “So I told the attorney that Harper may as well stay out.”

Phillips said Harper would have at least one surprise awaiting him when he returns to New York.

“It’s sad for Mr. Harper that the judge who took the plea is still around,” the Orange County prosecutor said. “And he’s one of the toughest judges.”