Second Witness at Odds With Oklahoma Blast Theory : Explosion: Attorney describes seeing man who ‘was not McVeigh’ hurry from the front of federal building moments before a truck bomb exploded.

A second private attorney has described a scene just before the April 19 federal building explosion here that does not dovetail with the government’s theory that Timothy J. McVeigh acted alone in the bombing that killed 169 people.

Ronald E. Stakem said in witness statements obtained Thursday by The Times that he saw a middle-aged Mexican or Native American man with facial hair hurrying from the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building moments before a truck bomb destroyed the high-rise office structure.

“I go through the intersection,” Stakem said, describing how he was driving to work that morning when he saw the man suddenly dart in front of traffic on the north side of the Murrah building, near where the bomb was planted. It was an unusual sight because most people use underground tunnels near the area and pedestrian traffic is not common.

“The guy stepped off the curb,” Stakem said. “I hit my brakes to keep from hitting him.”

Stakem’s recollections appear to bolster an account by another lawyer, James R. Linehan, who recently told The Times that he saw McVeigh driving the alleged getaway car on the opposite side of the Murrah building about the same time of the morning on April 19.

And sources said that, like Linehan, Stakem was never called before the federal grand jury investigating the bombing this summer because his story does not fit the single-bomber theory presented by the government.

In addition, the new eyewitness statements from the two lawyers appear to knock holes in the government’s official version of events--a case that according to the federal indictments of McVeigh and his Army buddy, Terry L. Nichols, seems built largely on circumstantial evidence.

“They shielded the grand jury from those people whose testimony is different from the government’s theory,” said McVeigh’s attorney, Stephen Jones of Enid, Okla.

“The grand jury never had the freedom of access to conflicting statements. Why? Because those witnesses who would undercut the government’s theory, the grand jury never heard about.”

Government prosecutors refused to discuss any witnesses or evidence in the case.

Revelations that the two lawyers are potentially key witnesses for the defense have surfaced after months in which their identities were kept confidential.

Linehan only told his story publicly after he was first approached by The Times. Stakem refused over two days this week to grant an interview and it is clear from his eyewitness statements that he spoke to the FBI only after an agent contacted him.

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Sources here have suggested that there may be others who saw things differently but are reluctant to step forward for fear that they will be castigated for helping the defense.

Besides the 169 people who died in the bombing, 600 were injured.

The 48-year-old Stakem, a Harvard graduate who received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1975, practices commercial law in downtown Oklahoma City at an office just blocks from the bombing site.

He was driving to work and passing along 5th Street on the north side of the Murrah building when he almost hit the dark-skinned, 30- to 40-year-old man, who appeared to be walking hurriedly from the front of the building near its children’s day-care center. He remembers the man wearing a dark shirt and dark pants.

By contrast, McVeigh is 27, white and light-skinned, with no facial hair. He was arrested an hour and a half after the bombing wearing a light-colored blue jacket.

“This man I saw was not McVeigh,” Stakem said. “It wasn’t McVeigh.

“He was not carrying anything. He didn’t say anything. We didn’t yell at each other or anything. It was a little bit startling for somebody to step off this curb. . . . He didn’t even look at me.”

Stakem said he parked his car and was walking toward his office when the bomb went off. An Army veteran, he first believed that the building had been hit by a mortar.

“I looked at my watch and it was 9:02 and the next thing I thought was I didn’t hear that shell come in,” he said. “From being in the Army, I had experience and thought it was a bomb. But I didn’t hear a shell.”

He next looked at his own high-rise office building.

“I thought the whole side of that building was going to come down,” he said.