Man Arrested, Accused of Threatening to Bomb Federal Building

SEATTLE -- Federal agents have arrested a man they say threatened to blow up the downtown office of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Charles M. Whitaker, 53, on Monday at a home in the Beacon Hill neighborhood in the city's south end.

''We believe this man was potentially planning to take violent action against the local VA office,'' said Ian Canaan, commander of the Federal Protective Service for Western Washington. ''Whether this man would have carried out his threats is uncertain, but we can not afford to take chances.''

Whitaker was being held at the King County Jail for investigation of threatening to bomb or damage property.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman in the immigration agency's regional office in Southern California, said authorities were pursuing state charges first and also were consulting the local U.S. attorney's office about whether federal charges are warranted.

The investigation began earlier this month after a former roommate of Whitaker's told authorities that Whitaker had made repeated threats to blow up the VA office, in the federal building, after being denied benefits.

In an affidavit, an agent quoted the ex-roommate as saying: ''Whitaker told me that the VA would pay for denying his claim ... and that he would get what he wanted from the VA one way or another. I believed that he meant that he would follow through on his threat to blow up the building.''

Whitaker claimed he had extensive bomb-making expertise from his stint in the military -- claims corroborated by a second former roommate, according to the Federal Protective Service, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that provides security at federal buildings. The immigration agency is part of the Homeland Security Department.

Kice said officers found discharge papers during the raid indicating Whitaker had served as a photography technician in the Army in the early 1970s. Authorities had not yet determined if he served in the Special Forces, as he had claimed, Kice said.

Both roommates said Whitaker claimed to have a large stockpile of weapons, including rifles, handguns and ammunition.

Officers executed search warrants Monday at the Beacon Hill home where Whitaker most recently rented a room and found field manuals on bomb-making, booby traps and military explosives. Then they searched a storage unit he leased in Renton.

In a phone interview after the arrest, Canaan said officers also found narcotics at the home. At the storage unit, he said officers found two semiautomatic pistols, ammunition and a hand grenade, which they later determined was not live.

(c) 2005 Associated Press