Tuesday, May 22, 2012

White supremacist sentenced to 40 years in Arizona bombing that injured black city official - @AP

The Associated Press

PHOENIX — A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a white supremacist to 40 years in prison for a 2004 bombing that wounded a black city official in suburban Phoenix.

FILE - In this July 16, 1997. file photo, Dennis Mahon, a white supremacist from Tulsa, Okla., talks to reporters before appearing before the Oklahoma County Grand Jury in Oklahoma City. Mahon, who was convicted in a 2004 bombing that injured a black city official, is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, May 22, 2012, in federal court. Mahon was found guilty in February of three federal charges and faces between seven and 100 years in prison. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter, File)

FILE - In an Aug. 12, 2009, file photo, Don Logan, the survivor of a hate crime after receiving a letter bomb at work as the diversity director for the city of Scottsdale, Ariz., talks during a discussion forum in Phoenix. A federal judge is scheduled Tuesday to sentence a white supremacist convicted for the 2004 bombing. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

FILE - In this July 16, 1997 file photo, Dennis Mahon, a white supremacist from Tulsa, Okla., talks to the media before appearing before the Oklahoma County Grand Jury investigating the Oklahoma City bombing. A federal judge is scheduled Tuesday to sentence a Mahon for his conviction in a 2004 bombing that injured a black city official in suburban Phoenix. A jury found 61-year-old Dennis Mahon guilty in February of three federal charges stemming from a package bomb that injured then-Scottsdale diversity director Don Logan, who is black and was Scottsdale's diversity director at the time. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter/file)

FILE - In a file photo of a courtroom sketch, a government informant, identified in court records as Rebecca Williams, testifies Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Phoenix in the trial of two white supremacist brothers charged with bombing a black city official in Scottsdale, Ariz. Williams, dubbed a "trailer park Mata Hari" by defense attorneys, spent about five years talking with identical twins Dennis and Daniel Mahon, surreptitiously recording their conversations and getting them to open up about the plot with a series of provocative acts. A federal judge is scheduled Tuesday to sentence 61-year-old Dennis Mahon for his conviction in the 2004 bombing. (AP Photo/Maggie Keane/file)

A jury earlier this year found Dennis Mahon, 61, guilty of three federal charges stemming from the package bomb that injured Don Logan, who is black and was Scottsdale's diversity director at the time, and hurt a secretary.

The jury stopped short of finding Mahon guilty of a hate crime after a six-week trial that included dramatic testimony from Logan and a female government informant dubbed a "trailer park Mata Hari" by defense attorneys.

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge David Campbell said the bombing was an "act of domestic terrorism" that was done to promote an agenda of hate and racism.

Mahon, meanwhile, maintained his innocence, telling the judge: "I didn't do this bombing." He said he felt bad for the victims, "but I can't apologize for something I didn't do."

Mahon had faced between seven and 100 years in prison. His twin brother, Daniel, also was accused in the case but was acquitted of the only charge he faced.

The package bomb detonated in Logan's hands on Feb. 26, 2004, in a Scottsdale city building.

Prosecutors argued at trial that the Mahon brothers bombed Logan on behalf of a group called the White Aryan Resistance, which they said encourages members to act as "lone wolves" and commit violence against non-whites and the government.

They showed surveillance tapes of the brothers referring to Logan in racial slurs. They also played a voicemail that Dennis Mahon left at Scottsdale's diversity office just months before the bombing in which he angrily said: "The white Aryan resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There's a few white people who are standing up."

Defense attorneys said someone working for the city of Scottsdale was likely the perpetrator because Logan's job made him unpopular.

They also heavily criticized the use of 41-year-old Rebecca Williams as an informant, giving her the nickname "trailer park Mata Hari" — a reference to the Dutch exotic dancer who was convicted of working as a spy for Germany during World War I.

Investigators met the former stripper through her brother, an informant himself on the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, and recruited her for the Mahon case, directing her to act like a government separatist and racist. She wore revealing clothes and sent racy photos to the brothers to win their trust.

Williams met the brothers in January 2005 after investigators set her up in a government-provided trailer at a Catoosa, Okla., campground where the brothers were staying at the time. A Confederate flag was placed in her window, and prosecutors say the Mahons introduced themselves within minutes of her arrival.

Dennis Mahon opened up to Williams as their conversations were recorded, telling her how to make bombs after she told him a fictitious story that she wanted to harm a child molester she knew.

In one conversation, she asked Mahon if he ever had a bomb work, to which he replied: "Yeah, diversity officer."

Logan testified at trial about the unbearable pain he felt after he opened the package, describing the lights going out, the room filling with smoke and debris falling from the ceiling.

Logan, who now works as a diversity administrator in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, was hospitalized for three days. He needed four surgeries to remove shrapnel from his arm and hand, do a skin graft on his severely damaged forearm and restore some use to one of his fingers that nearly had to be amputated.

Dennis Mahon's lawyers have argued that no evidence shows the bombing was done with the intent to seriously injure or kill Logan. They also said the facts fell far short of a 100-year sentence, noting there were no deaths or life-threatening injuries from the bombing.

Prosecutors, who recommended a sentence of more than 60 years, say Dennis Mahon intended to send a political message in trying to kill Logan.

The Mahons were living in the Phoenix area at the time of the bombing but left days afterward and were arrested in 2009 in Illinois.

Dennis Mahon's attorneys argued their client "often makes exaggerated self-aggrandizing claims" that aren't true, that he was an alcoholic who constantly was drinking Everclear, and that his statements to Williams were just meant to impress her.

Dennis Mahon was found guilty of conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosives; malicious damage of a building by means of explosives; and distribution of information related to explosives

Daniel Mahon was acquitted of conspiracy to damage buildings and property.

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May 22, 2012 07:36 PM EDT

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