U.S. Seeks to Hold 1st Unabomber Trial in N.J.

Federal prosecutors Thursday night said that Theodore J. Kaczynski’s New Jersey trial should not be moved to California, and that if the Unabomber suspect is concerned about a speedy resolution to his charges, the first trial should be held here in June.

The government had originally planned to try Kaczynski first in Sacramento, where a November trial date has been set on the other two deaths attributed to the Unabomber’s 18-year string of explosions.

Kaczynski’s lawyers are asking a judge here to transfer the New Jersey case to Sacramento, and ultimately seek a single trial there on all the Unabomber charges.

They argue that the move would expedite resolution of the charges arising from the 1994 mail bomb death of an advertising executive at his home in North Caldwell.

But in their reply filed Thursday, prosecutors said a June New Jersey trial would be done in time for the California trial to proceed on time.

The change of venue motion is to be argued here Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise, following Kaczynski’s arraignment by video conference on charges he murdered Thomas Mosser.

Kaczynski, who became a recluse in Montana after working as a mathematics professor at Berkeley, has already pleaded not guilty to a 10-count indictment covering four Unabomber attacks that killed two people in Sacramento.