Judge Clears Way for Extradition of Ex-Officer : Courts: The New York fugitive was arrested at his Oxnard residence last month after more than 13 years on the run. He pleaded guilty to bombings in ’79.

A Ventura County judge cleared the way Tuesday for a fugitive former police officer to be extradited to New York to face sentencing in connection with a 13-year-old bombing conviction.

Joseph Hamilton Harper was arrested at his Oxnard beach residence Oct. 22 after more than 13 years on the run.

Shortly after his arrest by the FBI, Harper asked that his identity be proved. Such requests are commonly used to delay extradition in fugitive cases.

Ventura County Municipal Judge Bruce A. Clark ruled Tuesday that the man arrested in Oxnard indeed is Harper, a former Woodbury, N.Y., police officer.

But the extradition still won’t occur until the governors of California and New York sign a warrant allowing Ventura County sheriff’s authorities to return the 45-year-old Harper to Orange County in Upstate New York.

Ventura County fugitive investigators will have to release Harper if they cannot get the extradition reviewed and signed by the two governors within 90 days, said Detective Charles W. Harwood of the sheriff’s fugitive squad.

Harper had been on the run since pleading guilty in 1979 to blowing up railroad tracks, a sewage treatment plant and an electric company transformer in Upstate New York. He had been released on $20,000 bail while awaiting sentencing when he disappeared.

Debra Pearson, a Ventura County sheriff’s technician and fingerprint expert, testified at the identification hearing that the fingerprints of the man arrested in Oxnard matched the prints on Harper’s fingerprint card from the Middletown, N.Y., police.

Clark scheduled an extradition hearing for Dec. 9 to determine whether the extradition paperwork has been signed by Govs. Mario Cuomo and Pete Wilson. Harwood said authorities have 90 days to obtain the extradition warrant.

“Every 30 days we can have a hearing to see if it has arrived, up to a total maximum of 90 days,” said Harwood, who handles more than 400 fugitive cases a year for the sheriff’s office.

He said he expects the warrant to be signed and delivered to him in time. After Tuesday’s identification hearing, Harwood phoned prosecutors in Orange County, N.Y.

“They assured me today that they are going to be starting the paperwork,” Harwood said.

But Harwood said Ventura County had to let a fugitive in another, lower-profile case go free last week, after the 90-day time limit had elapsed. New York officials, however, have said they desperately want Harper back there to face sentencing because he was convicted of using explosives and because he abused his authority as a police officer.

“They’re adamant that they are coming to get this gentleman,” Harwood said.

Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher, who represented Harper at Tuesday’s hearing, said his client has private reasons for trying to delay his extradition.

New York prosecutors have said they plan to seek the maximum term of 32 years for Harper, who 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 in early 1980.

Investigators said Harper apparently fled initially to Florida, where he spent 10 years living under an assumed identity. He apparently moved to Slidell, La., a suburb of New Orleans, after being profiled on television’s “America’s Most Wanted” in 1990.

Harper, whom friends have described as an electronics whiz, moved to the Oxnard area in the latter half of 1991, authorities said.