Bombing Jury Told About Robbery

Hoping to show how the Oklahoma City bombing was financed, government lawyers on Monday tied Terry L. Nichols to a cache of exotic firearms and other valuables reportedly stolen from an Arkansas gun collector.

Testifying in Nichols’ trial, Karen Anderson, the roommate of gun enthusiast Roger Moore, identified about a dozen weapons and other items, including pieces of expensive jade, that she said were stolen from the Moore farm.

Some of the items were discovered in Nichols’ home in Kansas after the bombing.

The testimony, which was not brought up in Timothy J. McVeigh’s trial earlier this year, is crucial to the government’s case against his co-defendant, Nichols. Because Nichols did not accompany McVeigh to Oklahoma City on the morning of the bombing, prosecutors want to demonstrate that Nichols was deeply involved in the planning that went into the April 19, 1995, explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The blast killed 168 people.

According to earlier testimony in the Nichols trial, Nichols and McVeigh bought bulk quantities of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in September and October 1994. On Nov. 5, 1994, Moore’s guns and other valuables were allegedly taken in a robbery.

Michael Fortier, the government’s chief witness, testified last week that McVeigh had said Nichols had robbed Moore. Fortier also said that he and McVeigh later sold some of the stolen weapons at gun shows, with the money used as reimbursement for the cost of the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.

On Monday, Anderson said that Moore befriended McVeigh at a gun show and later invited him to stay and help out at the Moore farm in Royal, Ark.

“I had him raking leaves,” she said of McVeigh. “I had him bagging some of the ammo up. Just whatever I could think of that would keep him occupied.”

She recalled McVeigh talking about the 1993 FBI assault on a religious compound near Waco, Texas, in which more than 80 people died. “He just was very upset,” she said. Another time, she said, she showed him where they kept their firearms.

Anderson said that she and Moore often sold ammunition, firearms and pornographic videos at gun shows and that on the weekend of the robbery she was at a show in Shreveport, La. She said that when she returned to the farm, Moore told her he had been robbed at gunpoint.

“You could tell that he was shook up,” she said.

She and Moore later reported that $60,000 to $70,000 in guns and valuables had been taken. The police asked her to describe who might have committed the crime, and she said she mentioned McVeigh.

“We were asked basically about people that might be aggravated at you or people that might have visited your home,” she said. Of McVeigh, she said: “You have a hard time believing that a friend would set you up.”

Asked by prosecutors, Anderson identified some guns and ammunition that she said were stolen.

Holding up a .12-gauge Winchester shotgun she said she purchased in 1983 in Florida, she said: “Well, it looked a lot better.” Examining a .308-caliber rifle, she said: “It’s my baby. I really liked the way it shoots.”

Under cross-examination by the defense, Anderson said that in the months before the bombing, McVeigh was trying to find people who shared his archconservative political views.

Moore is likely to testify today. Nichols’ lawyers are expected to suggest that the robbery was fabricated and that Moore--through his own anti-government views--was one of McVeigh’s chief collaborators in the bomb plot.