Rudolph pleads guilty to 1998 women's clinic bombing
Submitted by Templar Titan on Wed, 04/13/2005 - 17:52.
Guilty pleas expected in 3 other attacks, including Olympics
bombing BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) -- Eric Robert Rudolph displayed little remorse Wednesday as he pleaded guilty in federal court to the 1998 bombing of a women's clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an off-duty police officer and critically injuring a nurse. |
As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Rudolph also will plead guilty in Atlanta, Georgia, to three other bombings there, including a blast that killed a woman and wounded more than 100 people during the July 1996 Olympics. Rudolph, 38, avoids a death sentence under the plea agreement. At a later date he is expected to to receive four consecutive life terms without parole. During his court appearance in Birmingham, U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith asked Rudolph whether he detonated the bomb outside the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic. Rudolph replied, "I certainly did, your honor." Rudolph told the judge he believed prosecutors would "just barely" be able to prove their case against him, but acknowledged, "that's sufficient." And he praised his public defenders, telling Smith "they are very, very good. They're superlative attorneys." Following his admission at the Birmingham court hearing, the nurse who lost an eye from the 1998 bombing began weeping, The Associated Press reported. "He just sounded so proud of it. That's what really hurt," said Emily Lyons, the AP reported.. Rudolph was clean-shaven -- wearing a white, long-sleeved thermal undershirt, a bullet-proof vest and red clothing labeled Jefferson County Jail. He will next be taken to Atlanta, where in a 3 p.m. ET hearing he is expected to enter guilty pleas to three other bombings, including the July 1996 blast at Centennial Olympic Park. Smith set sentencing for July 18; a date also will be set in Atlanta. The widower of Alice Hawthorne, who was killed in the Atlanta bombing, was present in the Birmingham courtroom on Wednesday. "I was angry all over again," said John Hawthorne. "I was disappointed in his demeanor and his attitude and the way he answered the questions. We'll just go on to Atlanta from here, and probably expect to see the same thing there." "I'm not sure he's warm-blooded," said Doug Jones, former U.S. attorney in Birmingham. "He seemed to be proud of what he did. ... I assume he's doing what he's doing now because he's a coward and he's afraid to face the death penalty." Rudolph is also expected to plead guilty to a January 1997 bombing of an office building housing a women's clinic in suburban Atlanta -- which wounded six people -- and a February 1997 bombing of an Atlanta lesbian nightclub that left five wounded. A survivalist who avoided capture for more than five years by hiding in the North Carolina mountains before his May 2003 arrest, Rudolph likely will serve his prison sentence at the Florence, Colorado, "supermax" federal prison which is home to Ted Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber." There is no parole in the federal prison system. Hawthorne earlier said he felt Rudolph "needed to pay the ultimate penalty" for the attack that killed his wife. But he agreed to back federal prosecutors in the plea agreement since, as part of the deal, Rudolph disclosed the locations of caches of explosives he hid in the North Carolina mountains. He was a follower of the white supremacist Christian Identity movement, but investigators have never ascribed a motive for the attacks. Rudolph himself, however, may shed some light on his motivation Wednesday, as his attorneys are expected to release a written statement from him after he enters the guilty pleas. Deborah Rudolph, the suspect's former sister-in-law, said she believes Rudolph was driven by an animus toward the government and minorities. "He thinks that the strong are having to defend and support the weak," she said. "He believes that the Bible is the history of the white race, and that the other races in the Bible, you know, are just -- he would call them 'mud people.'" The Olympics, she said, were a target because they featured "all of these people coming from all different countries and cultures and colors and races and religions, all coming together in one place." CNN's David Mattingly and Henry Schuster contributed to this report. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published,
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this report. http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/13/eric.rudolph/index.html
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