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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/17522/full/17522/attempted-s-f-shul-bomber-sent-back-to-u-s-prison/ <br /><br /> <b>Attempted S.F. shul bomber sent back to U.S. prison</b> <br /> Friday, March 29, 2002 | by <p>ALEZA GOLDSMITH </p> <br /><br /><p>At least one rabbi is sleeping easier now that attempted synagogue bomber Coy Ray Phelps has been placed in a federal prison hospital.<br /><br /> Rabbi Jacob Traub of the Orthodox Adath Israel said he is pleased that Phelps was placed in the Federal Correctional Institute in Butner, N.C., last month. He had originally been placed in the mental institution at the federal prison in Springfield, Mo.<br /><br /> Phelps was convicted in 1986 of threatening Traub and his San Francisco synagogue, as well as other institutions, with pipe bombs.<br /><br /> Phelps had been conditionally released into a Sacramento County halfway house in 1999 after hospital staff found he was no longer in need of inpatient hospitalization. He later moved to an apartment.<br /><br /> But last week the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Phelps should never have been released.<br /><br /> The three-judge panel called his 1999 release a violation of procedure "because there was no certification by the director [of the institution] that Phelps' mental status justified conditional release."<br /><br /> Traub said the verdict comes as a welcome relief. "I'm happy that the courts agree with me; he is a dangerous individual who never should have been released."<br /><br /> Phelps' Santa Rosa attorney, George Boisseau, said he is currently reviewing the appeals court decision but had no further comment. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Jacobs did not return phone calls.<br /><br /> In 1986 Phelps was found guilty by insanity in a unanimous decision listing 14 counts of violating federal explosive laws, including placing homemade bombs, wrapped with anti-Zionist and racist literature, at San Francisco Conservative Congregation Beth Sholom, Adath Israel, Traub's home, and in a black-studies classroom at San Francisco State University. Only one bomb, which was placed at the Humanist Party headquarters, went off.<br /><br /> Phelps was originally arrested through information supplied to the San Francisco Police Department, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms by the local office of the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL had been monitoring him since 1979 and said he was the founder and sole member of the Church of the Holy Brotherhood, advocating violence against Jews and non-whites.<br /><br /> At the time of his sentencing Jewish community groups, including the ADL, expressed outrage that Phelps, who has a history of paranoid schizophrenia, was also deemed "not guilty only by reason of insanity." He had been facing a 140-year sentence in prison and up to $3.5 million in fines.<br /><br /> "We do not believe that a finding of insanity is exculpatory of Phelps' violent acts of racism and anti-Semitism," said Richard Hirschhaut, the ADL regional director at that time.<br /><br /> He and others told the Bulletin that they would continue to monitor the case since Phelps could be released from his indeterminate sentence as soon as it seemed he was longer dangerous.<br /><br /> But it wasn't until after Phelps' release to a halfway house in Lodi in 1999 that many, including Traub, even knew he was out of prison and back in California. Traub said he received a "courtesy" call from the U.S. Attorney's office to which "I voiced my concern—Lodi being such a short distance from here."<br /><br /> The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that following the 1999 release Phelps promptly started work on a Web site that advocated the murders of blacks and Jews. He also made three attempts to buy a gun, the newspaper reported.<br /><br /> Jonathan Bernstein, the current regional director of the ADL's Central Pacific area, said none of this comes as a surprise.<br /><br /> "This is a dangerous man to society who shouldn't have been released. He felt like Jews and blacks should be exterminated and that he was the one to do it. Clearly he still has those attitudes and violent tendencies," he said.<br /><br /> "Hopefully they won't make the same mistake twice."</p> <p> </p>

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