Neo-Nazi Jeffery Harbin of Apache Junction will received up to five years in prison after pleading guilty in federal court yesterday to making and transporting bombs.
Court records show that an FBI informant who knew Harbin's girlfriend heard that Harbin had been building pipe bombs and invited him out for a meeting in preparation for what the informant said would be "operations along the (U.S.-Mexico) border."
Harbin showed up to the January 14 meeting in the informants garage with two Rubbermaid tubs full of bomb-making materials. In a separate bag, Harbin had brought what he said was a "homemade grenade." He called it his "little baby."
The FBI had an Arizona Department of Public Safety team later pulled over Harbin's car, in which they found three "improvised explosive devices," or IEDs. At least one of them contained ball bearings -- an evil addition that ensured maximum damage to anyone near the grenade when it went off.
Though Harbin could have received up to 20 years in prison for the two counts of making and transporting the bombs, the plea agreement states that he won't get more than five years when he's sentenced by U.S. District Judge Neil Wake on December 13.
White supremacist and former candidate for the state legislature J.T. Ready, in previous news stories, claimed that personally recruited Harbin of Apache Junction into a local chapter of white-power anti-immigrant vigilante force called the U.S. Border Guard. One one white supremacist Web site, a post that appears to be from Ready states that Harbin had been kicked out of the group for "being a thief and for strange mental behavior."
Funny, but we figured all these neo-Nazis suffered from "strange mental behavior." Perhaps Ready means that Harbin once helped an old lady across the street or something.
