Prosecutors Deny Misconduct Charges in Blast Case

Responding to charges of improper conduct, federal prosecutors in the Oklahoma City bombing case denied Wednesday that they have shielded witnesses from defense attorneys and that they are leaking selected information to the press to bolster the government’s case.

Lawyers from the U.S. attorney’s office, in a spirited commentary on their work in the two months since the bombing of the federal building here, argued in federal court papers that defense lawyers had wrongly accused them of ordering key witnesses not to talk with the defense until indictments are announced later this summer.

“Contrary to [suspect Terry L.] Nichols’ baseless claims of investigative misconduct,” prosecutors said, “the United States is conducting an exceptionally complex investigation in a professional manner.”

Attorneys for Nichols and suspect Timothy J. McVeigh have charged over the last two weeks that they have been unable to develop key aspects of their defense because the government is not allowing them to interview crucial witnesses.

Specifically, the defense lawyers charged that they have been prevented from talking with employees at a Junction City, Kan., truck rental agency where McVeigh allegedly picked up the vehicle used in the bombing, as well as the state trooper who later arrested him after the April 19 blast that killed 168 and injured about 500.

Nichols and McVeigh are the only people charged and a federal judge has granted prosecutors until Aug. 11 to present evidence to a federal grand jury here for indictments in the terrorist attack.

Defense attorneys have complained that the unusually long grand jury timetable has effectively allowed the government to shut down the work of defense investigators. They have said that employees at the Bob Elliott Body Shop in Junction City, where the truck used in the bombing was allegedly rented, have told them that the FBI has ordered them not to talk with the defense.

But on Wednesday, the government denied that FBI Special Agent Scott Crabtree had told employees of the body shop not to cooperate.

“He told the witnesses that the decision whether to share their information with others was entirely their own and that they were under no obligation to do so,” the government said. “The FBI has since confirmed that the witnesses from Elliott’s understand this fact.”

Prosecutors also said that Trooper Charlie Hanger has been advised by his supervisors that an interview with defense attorneys “would not serve the interests of his department.”

“Nichols’ real problem, if any, is not that the FBI has blocked access to potential witnesses,” the government said. “Those witnesses have independently chosen not to speak with the defense.”

Prosecutors denied that they have leaked information to drum up animosity toward the defendants. Rather, they said, their official statements “have been limited to either matters of public record or else matters in which the public’s help has been enlisted in locating possible suspects, witnesses and tangible evidence.”