2 Charged With Planting Fake Bombs Accept Deal

Two alleged white supremacists accused of planting fake bombs in the San Fernando Valley to scare away minorities entered pleas of no contest in Los Angeles Municipal Court on Wednesday to drug charges and hate crimes involving bomb threats and a shooting.

Jeffrey Allen Campbell, 28, agreed to a 15-year prison sentence and Justin Nicholas Bertone, 19, accepted seven years in exchange for prosecutors dropping some of the charges against them.

“Campbell was the major player,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carla Arranaga. “Bertone pretty much acted at Campbell’s behest. He was young and impressionable.”

Both defendants deny being white supremacists, according to their lawyers.

James Blatt, an Encino defense lawyer hired by Campbell’s family, said his client told him the motivation behind the threats was not racial hatred but a “stupid attempt to scare away the competition” in drug sales.

Detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department’s criminal conspiracy section arrested Campbell and Bertone in January after determining that they were responsible for planting about 10 fake bombs in the Valley and Hollywood in 1997. At the time, authorities said the motivation was to scare away Latinos and African Americans.

Campbell and Bertone did not enter pleas in the 1997 crimes, but for earlier incidents between July 22 and July 24, 1996, in which they were accused of making two false bomb threats involving an apartment building and a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. They also were convicted of shooting at a home occupied by Latinos. Those charges all include special allegations that they were hate crimes.

In calls to 911 reporting bombs at those addresses, operators were told the explosives were planted “to rid Sunland-Tujunga of minorities,” according to LAPD Det. Kenny Wheeler. People of various races lived in the apartment building and the Kentucky Fried Chicken was managed by a member of an ethnic minority.

Campbell and Bertone also entered no contest pleas to charges of possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell.

In exchange for their pleas, charges will be dropped in the other bomb threats, which Arranaga said were determined to be childish pranks, not hate crimes.

“I’m really happy that they got what they got,” Wheeler said. “It was just a matter of time, I believe, before they would have tried to set a bomb off. That had to be [the] next step.”

Wheeler said he is still investigating the involvement of others in the bomb threats and that more arrests may follow.

Campbell’s lawyer said his client admitted his involvement to police after his arrest and had no intention of taking the matter to trial.

Felicia Kahn Grant, Bertone’s defense lawyer, said her client agreed to what was a fair offer on charges that prosecutors could prove to a jury, based in large part on his confession to authorities. She said the evidence was not as strong in the other allegations.

The two will be sentenced May 13.