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The man, who plotted to rob banks and detonate pipe bombs, is accused of stealing from Countryside Mall.
By CHRIS TISCH
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 21, 2001
CLEARWATER -- An avowed racist and white supremacist who was convicted in an elaborate bank robbery and bombing plot in Orlando three years ago arrived in Pinellas County on Tuesday to answer for a crime he is accused of committing in Clearwater.
Todd Vanbiber, 32, is charged with grand theft in connection with two 1996 burglaries at Countryside Mall, which he is accused of committing with the help of a mall security guard who federal prosecutors say also was a white supremacist.
More than $35,000 in merchandise was stolen from the mall during those burglaries.
Vanbiber said in court in 1998 that he had been a racist all his life and was a member of the white supremacist group National Alliance. He admitted to robbing banks, then giving money to the group.
Civil rights leaders said local people should be concerned that someone like Vanbiber was operating in the Tampa Bay area. The National Alliance is considered very active in Florida, with its main state hub in the Tampa area, according to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.
The National Alliance is "one of the more violent-prone, extremist groups in the United States," said Art Teitelbaum, Southern area director for the ADL.
The National Alliance's leader, William Pierce, is the author of Turner Diaries, which prosecutors said was the blueprint used by Timothy McVeigh in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. The novel supports holding up banks to fund the overthrow of the government. It also advocates killing blacks and Jews.
National Alliance leaders could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Pierce has said he does not advocate violence, but his writings are full of violence, said Marilyn Mayo, associate director of the fact-finding department for the Anti-Defamation League in New York.
She said there is no way to determine whether National Alliance members in the Tampa cell are a threat like Vanbiber, though she said Pierce's writings have the potential to influence people.
"Todd Vanbiber is not the only person to be influenced by William Pierce," she said. "Words do influence actions.
"A lot of people who are attracted to the group are definitely violent-prone," she added.
Just how many people are involved in the National Alliance in the Tampa Bay area is unknown, Mayo said, because group members are very secretive.
However, National Alliance members hosted three visits to Tampa by David Duke in 1997 and 1998. As many as 150 people, including about 20 skinheads, attended those Duke events.
At 2:45 a.m. Tuesday, Vanbiber arrived in Pinellas County to face charges in connection with the Countryside Mall case. He was booked into the jail, where he will await trial on a grand theft charge.
Federal agents said Tampa resident Brian Pickett, a Wackenhut security officer, helped Vanbiber in the thefts. Pickett guarded banks and businesses, including Countryside Mall. When interviewed in 1997 by federal agents, Vanbiber told them about the Countryside Mall burglary, according to an arrest warrant.
Pickett gave Vanbiber keys to the mall in April 1996, while Pickett was a security officer there. The first time Vanbiber went inside, picked the lock of a kiosk filled with sunglasses and stole about $20,000 in sunglasses, the warrant states.
Vanbiber said while he was inside the mall, he and Pickett communicated with walkie-talkies, with Pickett warning Vanbiber of the location of cleaning crews so he wouldn't be caught, the warrant states.
The pair worked out the same scheme in July 1996. Vanbiber stole $16,000 worth of sports cards, the warrant states.
After Vanbiber told federal agents of the burglaries, they notified Clearwater police detectives, who obtained the warrant for his arrest.
Civil rights leaders nationwide know Vanbiber's name because he was behind a plot to rob two Orlando banks in 1997, then detonate 14 pipe bombs to divert police response.
That plan was halted when one of the bombs accidentally exploded in Vanbiber's face just days before the plan was to be carried out. Investigators found racist and Nazi paraphernalia in a storage shed where Vanbiber had tinkered with the bombs.
Police and fire department rescuers responded to the explosion in which Vanbiber was injured and found what they considered the makings of a potential disaster. An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI was launched.
Agents found explosives, weapons, racist literature, Nazi memorabilia and material showing Vanbiber was a member of the National Alliance. Some of the bombs had been fully assembled, others were prepared with timers and clocks.
Vanbiber, who is from Altamonte Springs, was arrested on explosives charges, to which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 611/2 years in federal prison before agreeing to cooperate in federal cases against three associates, including Pickett. His sentence was reduced to about six years in federal prison and he has about a year to go with good time earned.
He was transferred to Pinellas County from a federal prison in Mississippi on Tuesday after requesting that his charges in the Clearwater case be resolved.