Life term for man who mailed bombs to Clinton, ATF

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000 | 10:36 a.m.

A Louisiana man who mailed a pipe bomb to President Clinton in March 1999 was sentenced to life plus 39 years in prison Tuesday.

Frank Alexander, 53, had been offered a plea agreement in which he could have received 40 years, but he turned it down, saying he would rather die in prison than on the streets.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom O'Connell said Alexander chose not to make a statement before U.S. District Judge David Hagen pronounced sentence.

Psychologists have said that although Alexander has mental problems, they don't rise to the level needed for an insanity defense.

According to court testimony, Alexander was arrested March 28 at a Las Vegas motel after he called a local mental health facility and said he had mailed a bomb to the president and a Texas evangelist. He also called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to say he had mailed a bomb to one of its employees.

A search of Alexander's rooms revealed 10 pounds of gunpowder and other bomb-making ingredients. The pipe bomb intended for the ATF agent was found at the Greyhound bus station after Alexander told authorities he had asked a bus employee to mail it.

A further investigation revealed that Alexander was also responsible for a pipe bomb that ignited in the rear of a U.S. Postal Service tractor-trailer in Washington, D.C. He was also connected to a pipe bomb that exploded on a conveyor belt inside a Dallas bulk mail center.

Both bombs were inside packages mailed from Louisiana March 22. One was addressed to WJC at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., and the other was addressed to a San Antonio minister.

All of the cases were combined into one, and Alexander pleaded guilty to two counts of mailing injurious articles, two counts of using a firearm during a violent crime and one count of attempted murder of a federal employee.