Ex-O.C. Man, 2nd Skinhead Sent to Prison

A federal judge Thursday sentenced one member of the Fourth Reich Skinheads to nearly five years in prison and another to more than eight years, brusquely dismissing claims that they never meant to hurt anyone.

“They were sending absolutely the wrong message,” U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. said of Christopher David Fisher, 20, of Long Beach and Carl Daniel Boese, 17, formerly of Huntington Beach. “Hopefully, what occurs in this courtroom sends a different kind of message.”

Fisher, who received the longer sentence, and Boese were leaders of a group of skinheads who used pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails on a number of residences and synagogues, including the Temple Beth David synagogue in Westminster. The group also plotted an attack on the historic First African Methodist Episcopal Church in South-Central Los Angeles.

The skinheads hoped that their attacks would help spark a race war, but an FBI agent and informant had infiltrated the group. Agents arrested three members in July--an event that captured national attention. The third suspect is awaiting trial in state court.

The parents of both young men were in the courtroom Thursday, and Fisher cried as he tried to explain his actions to the the judge.

“In the last six months, I’ve had a lot of time to soul-search and think about what I’ve done,” he said, as his mother and father bowed their heads and his younger brother watched with rapt attention. “I don’t think that I would have done that attack on the AME Church, but I can’t deny the seriousness of what we said.”

Boese displayed no emotion, insisting that he “never wanted to hurt anybody” and only sought to “do good.” When Byrne announced his sentences, Boese shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at his parents.

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Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the judge’s sentences--57 months for Boese and 97 months for Fisher, followed by three years’ supervised release for both--would have the right effect.

“It’s a very serious sentence and a very sobering one,” said Cooper, who was one of the organizers of a series of counseling sessions that the skinheads attended last month. “Today’s sentence is a message that society is going to take this kind of conduct seriously.”

Fisher and Boese pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges and as part of those pleas agreed to accept sentences slightly longer than those imposed by Byrne. The judge said federal sentencing guidelines forced him to give out shorter sentences than he might have imposed, but that he selected the longest sentence that he believed he could justify legally.

“The sentence, of necessity, needs to be severe,” Byrne said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Marc R. Greenberg, who prosecuted the case, said he was satisfied with the sentences. Lawyer Anna Ho, who represented Fisher, said an appeal of her client’s sentence is under consideration. Corey House, Boese’s attorney, was not available for comment.

Ho and House had argued that short prison terms, combined with intensive counseling, would be enough to teach their clients a lesson without ruining their chances for rehabilitation. Boese and Fisher have undergone three days of innovative counseling organized by Greenberg and a number of prominent African American and Jewish organizations.

As part of that counseling, Fisher, Boese and other members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads met a federal judge, discussed their views with student counselors, met with two Holocaust survivors and, for the first time, sat down with the Rev. Cecil Murray, pastor of First AME Church and the target of one of their assassination plots.

The meeting with Murray was especially emotional and ended with the minister, Boese and Fisher in tears. Murray forgave the youths and said later that he believed the meeting had a profound effect on all the participants.

Greenberg was the force behind the counseling program, and he received a letter this week from Fisher thanking him.

Fisher, who first addressed the letter to “Mark Greenbird,” before scratching out the last name and spelling it correctly, wrote: “As far as I go, will probably never see you again because I’m staying out of trouble and trying very hard to get a job. . . . I’ll just keep this short and just say, ‘Thank you Mark Greenberg, I appreciate what you’ve done’ and my deepest apologies for what I’ve done.”

Fisher also expressed his appreciation for the counseling sessions in a letter to Byrne.

“God has forgiven me. Cecil Murray has forgiven me,” Fisher wrote. “I am working on forgiving myself. I can only pray that society can forgive me too.”

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After Thursday’s hearing, Greenberg said he believes that Fisher has shown remorse and a genuine desire to change. But the prosecutor was less impressed by Boese’s conduct.

“He’s as bad, if not worse, than he was when he was arrested,” Greenberg said.

House acknowledged that her client’s racial views, which were captured on audio and videotape recorders during the undercover investigation, were “distasteful and heinous.” She described Boese as very immature emotionally and said he had told a psychologist that he imagined that once he was in prison, he would have the chance to engage in philosophical discussions about race with other inmates.

House called that a distorted fantasy of prison life.

Boese, who was born in Huntington Beach, grew up in Ontario but returned to Orange County a year ago and attended Marina High School, where he was enrolled in honors and advance-placement classes.

In March he was arrested on suspicion of etching a swastika in the school’s lawn, raising a Nazi flag and burning material in the school. Shortly afterward, he left Huntington Beach and moved in with his father in Crestline.

He said during the trial that he met Fisher through a telephone number listed in the White Aryan Resistance newspaper.

The two hit it off instantly, Boese told the judge in October, because they thought of themselves as staunchly conservative and hostile to blacks and Jews.

Fisher, the church-going son of academicians described as liberals, grew up in a home where racial tolerance was encouraged and practiced, according to those who know the Fisher family.

But during his first year in college, he organized first the White Youth Alliance and later the Fourth Reich Skinheads.

The lawyers for Fisher and Boese urged the judge to help them arrange for the defendants to serve their sentences in minimum-security prisons. The combination of their clients’ ages, their notoriety and their association with racist views could otherwise subject Boese and Fisher to harm while in custody, the attorneys argued.

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One doctor who examined Fisher warned that putting him into the general prison population could endanger his safety and chances for rehabilitation.

“He would promptly be taken over and thus protected by the white supremacists (perhaps with sexual subjugation as the price),” Louis Jolyon West wrote of Fisher. “The alternative might be his death by assassination.”

Although judges cannot usually request a prison assignment for the defendants they sentence, Byrne agreed to meet with attorneys and to consider drafting a special request to the Bureau of Prisons. Greenberg said prosecutors had no objection to that arrangement, and Byrne scheduled a hearing for next week.

As Thursday’s hearing concluded, Boese and his family quickly left the courtroom, declining comment as they hustled through the courthouse corridor.

Fisher, who has been in custody since his arrest, was allowed to speak briefly with his father before he was escorted away by U.S. marshals. Fisher was shackled and handcuffed and led from the courtroom. His girlfriend, who has attended many of the hearings, waved a tearful farewell.

“I love you,” she said as he passed, flanked by marshals.

“I love you too,” Fisher responded.

Times Staff Writer Fernando Romero contributed to this story.