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Associated PressThe suspect, who allegedly had targeted several abortion clinics, is described as admirer of the executed Paul Hill.
MIAMI - A man accused of planning to bomb abortion clinics had corresponded with Paul Hill, recently executed for murdering a Pensacola abortion doctor, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Stephen John Jordi, 35, was planning imminent attacks on unspecified abortion clinics north of Miami-Dade County when he was arrested Tuesday, said U.S. Attorney Marcos Jimenez.
Prosecutors declined to name the targets, but a criminal complaint said Jordi cased several area clinics and discussed bombing one in Macon, Ga.
Prosecutors said Jordi was an admirer of Hill, executed Sept. 3 for gunning down an abortion doctor and his bodyguard outside a Pensacola clinic in 1994. He attended demonstrations outside the prison where Hill was executed and was photographed by the New York Times walking alongside Joshua Graff, a convicted abortion clinic bomber, and Neal Horsley, an antiabortion activist.
According to an FBI affidavit, Jordi, a former Army Ranger, hoped to elude authorities the way Eric Rudolph, who is charged with the 1996 Olympic bombing in Atlanta and several abortion clinic bombings, did for years.
"As long as I keep hitting places ... they'll keep after me ... but like trying to catch a cockroach in a house ... they won't get me," Jordi allegedly told an FBI source.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force had been investigating Jordi since August.
Jordi made an initial appearance in federal court Wednesday, a day after being arrested when he jumped from a boat into Biscayne Bay as agents questioned him at a Miami Beach marina. He is charged with solicitation to commit a crime of violence, distribution of information relating to making and using explosives for arson and possession of an unregistered firearm/destructive device.
Authorities said Jordi's Coconut Creek house was searched late Tuesday, but refused to say what was found.
Jordi's brother, Michael Jordi, of Bridgeport, Ala., said by telephone Wednesday that he told the FBI of the plot after learning about it in July. He said he and his brother have a poor relationship, and called him mentally unstable. The FBI complaint says Jordi studied bombing methods throughout the fall and had telephone discussions with Horsley and Graff. Horsley and Graff could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Prosecutors declined to say whether anyone else would be charged in the case.
In an Oct. 8 meeting, Jordi allegedly told the FBI source he wanted to kill President Bush and former President Clinton.
On Tuesday, Jordi and the FBI source met in Deerfield Beach and went shopping, buying gasoline cans, flares, starter fluid and propane tanks, including one filled with gas. The two later filled two gasoline cans at a gas station.
The FBI source also provided Jordi with a Springfield .45-caliber pistol with a silencer and empty magazines in exchange for $200. Jordi was arrested later in the day.
Jordi showed the source a letter he received from Hill on Florida's death row in July, thanking him for his support.