Rudolph pleads guilty to abortion bombing
Same plea expected in Olympics bombing and two others

BREAKING NEWS
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:44 a.m. ET April 13, 2005

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty Wednesday to a 1998 abortion clinic bombing that killed a police officer, the first in a string of bombings that he has admitted to as part of a plea deal.

Rudolph, dressed in orange jail clothes, spoke only to confirm that he understood the charges he faced and answer a series of questions from the judge. He said he believed the government could “just barely” prove the case against him if it went to trial.

Rudolph’s most elaborate statement was regarding his attorneys. “They’re very, very good, superlative attorneys,” he told the judge.

Rudolph arrived at the federal court in Birmingham in a car surrounded by 10 marked and unmarked police vehicles. He was expected to plead guilty to three other bombings later Wednesday, including the blast at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

Victim 'nauseated'
Outside the courthouse, Emily Lyons, who was critically injured in the Birmingham bombing, said she was “nauseated” that Rudolph’s plea will allow him to dodge the death penalty.

“We’ve always felt the death penalty is what he deserved. The punishment should fit the crime,” Lyons said. “It’s just a sickening feeling.”

She said it seems Rudolph is being punished only for the bombs themselves and not the two deaths and roughly 150 injuries that the bombs caused.

“We were a freebie for him,” she said.

Rudolph's lawyer earlier said that sometime after the plea hearings, Rudolph intends to release a written statement explaining the bombings, which killed a woman at the Olympics and a police officer at an abortion clinic in Birmingham in 1998.

Rudolph, who also has confessed to planting bombs at a gay bar and an abortion clinic in Atlanta in 1997, will receive four consecutive life terms instead of facing the possibility of a death sentence if judges accept the deal.

Rudolph, believed to be a follower of a white supremacist religion that is anti-abortion, anti-gay and anti-Semitic, eluded a 5 1/4-year manhunt in the Appalachian wilderness. He was captured near a grocery store in Murphy, N.C., in 2003.

Plea deal
Under the plea deal, Fulton County prosecutors agreed not to pursue future state charges in Georgia against Rudolph at the request of federal authorities, said Erik Friedly, a spokesman for District Attorney Paul Howard. In Alabama, Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber said he wouldn’t comment on the possibility of any state charges there until after sentencing.

Sentencing will likely be held within three months of the guilty pleas, court officials said.

Authorities plan to hold Rudolph, 38, at the county jail in Birmingham while he awaits sentencing.

Rudolph could be back in Alabama within an hour of his plea in Atlanta, where courthouse security questions are still swirling after a gunman killed a judge and three other people a month ago at a separate, state judicial building.

The owner of the Alabama clinic that Rudolph bombed hopes his confession leads to the arrest of others she believes may have assisted in the attack. “Absolutely he had help,” said Diane Derzis, whose New Woman All Women Health Care installed security cameras after the attack. “There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Nothing like seeing a homophobic right-wing maniac be sentenced to a lifetime of cock up the ass.

Word. That IS his death penalty.

He could have gone to court and lost. He obviously chose the butt-fucking over death, just as surely as if he'd checked a box.

What sentence would you prefer:
__ Death
XX Endless butt-fucking
__ Cuddly Kittens

*fixed

That could be a very brutal sentence for an very, very straight man like Rudolph.

So, will this terrorist be given a plea deal on the Olympic bombing? Think about that for a second--he set off a bomb at the Olympics. Is "plea bargain" the message we should be sending to terrorists these days?

I can tell you're being facetious, but if an Islamic terrorist were to turn over to the government the location of a bunch of explosives/plans/cohorts in exchange for life in prison instead of the death penalty, then yes, this is exactly the message we should be sending to terrorists.

He should get the death penalty in my opinion.

I'm glad that that fuck is getting ass-raped in prison