Charges Against a 2nd Bomb Suspect Reportedly Filed : Investigation: Sealed complaint accuses Terry Nichols of role in attack on Oklahoma federal building, sources say. Officials are also taking closer look at his son.

Federal authorities have filed a sealed complaint charging a second man--Terry L. Nichols, a former Army buddy of accused bomber Timothy J. McVeigh--with blowing up the federal building here April 19, government sources said Tuesday.

Nichols, 40, is scheduled to be transported here today from Wichita, Kan., where he has been held as a material witness in the bombing and as a defendant in an unrelated case in which he is charged with conspiring to make explosive devices. McVeigh, 27, and Nichols have been described as sharing a hatred of the federal government.

There was no indication that federal authorities believe that they have enough evidence to bring similar charges against Nichols’ 41-year-old brother, James D. Nichols, with whom McVeigh formerly lived in Michigan and who also is being held as a material witness in the bombing and as a defendant in the conspiracy case.

The complaint against Terry Nichols was sealed, one source said, to give the court advance notice to look for defense counsel in hopes of avoiding the shuffle that occurred with attorneys representing McVeigh. The two lawyers who originally defended McVeigh succeeded in removing themselves from the case, noting that they had known victims of what is the worst terrorist act committed on U.S. soil.

David J. Phillips, the chief public defender in Kansas who helped with Terry Nichols’ defense in Wichita, said he thought that his client was close to being charged in the bombing. But he said he was unsure of what the exact charge would be.

“It could be anything,” Phillips said.

At the same time, sources close to the case said the investigation is also taking a deeper look at Terry Nichols’ 12-year-old son, Joshua, after learning that he lived with his father for several days before the attack. The boy could be a crucial witness, the sources said.

The boy’s mother, Lana Padilla, said in an interview broadcast earlier this week that Joshua told the FBI that he and his father had discussed the ingredients of a bomb made with a soda pop bottle. Padilla was interviewed by the syndicated television show “American Journal.”

Padilla, who is divorced from Terry Nichols, is to appear before the federal grand jury in Oklahoma City that is investigating the bombing, government sources said. They declined to give the date.

The sources said differences exist between what she has told the FBI and what she said in her TV interview. But they declined to detail those discrepancies, noting that they hoped to resolve them during her sworn testimony before the grand jury.

Questioning of her son is more of a problem because of his status as a juvenile, which, among other things, allows him to be accompanied before the grand jury by an attorney, his mother or some other adult, the government sources said. Adult witnesses appear without attorneys.

Investigators, meantime, began to fear that they were given a false lead in the description of the long-sought suspect known as “John Doe No. 2,” who was said to have accompanied McVeigh to the Junction City, Kan., Ryder truck-rental franchise on April 17 to rent the vehicle allegedly used in the bombing.

Some are even advancing the theory that John Doe No. 2 was Nichols--who bears little resemblance to the FBI’s composite drawing of the suspect--or possibly even Nichols’ son, who appears to be as tall as 5-foot-7 and to weigh as much as 170 pounds. One source close to the case said that if John Doe No. 2 turns out to be Joshua Nichols, the likelihood is that he had an “innocuous” role but that he could be helpful as a witness in the case.

Another source close to the investigation said doubts also are increasing over whether the man who accompanied McVeigh to the Ryder rental agency was the same individual that a witness reported seeing with McVeigh as they sped away from downtown Oklahoma City on the morning of the bombing. Investigators had thought that the same person was with McVeigh in both places.

The investigators said authorities think that John Doe No. 2 could be two people and that different men could have accompanied McVeigh to serve as “decoys” and confuse investigators trying to trace his movements.

He said officials also fear that the descriptions and the composite drawing of the second suspect not only may have resulted from a “misdirection” but may have cost them valuable investigative time in the early stages of the manhunt.

Describing that kind of uncertainty in the early days of the investigation, the source said:

“What happened is they went off in a misdirection. They were looking for a real muscular guy who was tanned, and that was false. So here they were chasing down this false lead, several false leads.

“It’s got to be a very small conspiracy,” he added, “because with a big conspiracy you can’t keep this under wraps.”

Under that assumption, he said, investigators have a theory that James Nichols was “the brains” behind how the bombing scheme would work. Terry Nichols was the expert in building the explosive and McVeigh was the man who would carry out the plot.

“McVeigh was not smart enough to build this,” the source said. “He’s the soldier. He’s the guy who takes it, parks it, lights it, blows it up.

“But obviously there’s going to be somebody with him to transfer him out of there, to take him out of there.”

That accomplice, the alleged John Doe No. 2, also could be someone still unknown to federal investigators. “It could be a real loner or a drifter,” the source said.

If it is someone close to McVeigh, the source said, the investigation eventually will reach him. Investigators are “homing in on all of McVeigh’s friends. And these people don’t parachute in from other planets. They are in the circle. They are friends. They are compatriots and they are believers together.”

The relationship between Terry Nichols and McVeigh dates to 1988, when the two served in the same Army unit. Years later, the two men and James Nichols were often seen experimenting with small explosive devices on James Nichols’ farm in Decker, Mich., neighbors have said.

In the days immediately before the bombing, Terry Nichols and McVeigh were in frequent contact, federal authorities said.

After the blast, investigators searched Nichols’ home in Herington, Kan., and found three empty 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate, the main ingredient used in the bombing, and non-electric detonators, as well as 55-gallon plastic drums and a meter that measures fuel oil in precise amounts. Fuel oil was the other major ingredient of the bomb.

In the television interview, Padilla said Terry Nichols had left a sealed package with her last November that included “last will type” instructions for her and a separate letter for McVeigh.

Although Nichols, who had been visiting her and Joshua, instructed her not to open the package unless he failed to return in 60 days, she said she opened it the next day. It contained stocks, Treasury bonds and keys to a safe deposit box, a storage locker and his car.

The locker was in Las Vegas, where Padilla lives and operates real estate firms. Inside, she said she was astonished to find thousands of dollars in gold and silver bullion, ski masks, tubular pipes and survival gear.

Sam Ventura, owner of the storage facility, AAAAB Co., which claims to be the biggest such business in Las Vegas, said Terry Nichols had rented the locker from last November to Jan. 18. At that time, Ventura said, he “vacated” the locker to rent it to someone else. He said he found none of the items Padilla described.

Ventura, in a telephone interview, said he did not recall what the locker contained, but only that he had dumped it in the trash. “These are huge facilities, 2,000 tenants, and we clean out 50 to 60 a day. We don’t pay attention to what we throw out in the trash.”

He said FBI agents had visited the facility twice this month and last, but they had not searched the locker Nichols had used.

The tubular pipes, masks and survival gear that Padilla said had been in the locker are potentially important because authorities are looking for links between McVeigh or Terry Nichols and a series of bank robberies in the Midwest by men wearing masks and carrying pipe bombs.

Padilla said the second letter, addressed to McVeigh, contained cryptic instructions about a locker and a storage unit. “This letter pertains to the event of my death,” the letter said.

“You’re on your own, go for it,” it continued. “As far as heat--none that I know.”

In the TV interview, Padilla said her son had lived with his father during the summers for the five years since their divorce and that McVeigh often lived with them.

Referring to the Oklahoma bombing, she said her son “believes that Tim could do it, but he doesn’t believe his dad could.” Asked why, she cited only “some things that were discussed during the investigation.”

The problems associated with questioning the 12-year-old boy stem from provisions in the federal criminal code pertaining to child victims and the rights of child witnesses. Although the provisions appear to be written for child abuse and exploitation cases, Justice Department sources said the government looks to the safeguards for guidance in dealing with children in other matters.

They provide for a child to be questioned outside a courtroom by means of two-way, closed-circuit television and for sworn statements to be taken on videotape, if a judge orders it.

Ostrow reported from Washington and Serrano from Oklahoma City.