Barbers: Probe Nichols money stash claim

The Philippine embassy in Washington should verify claims that the alleged conspirator in the deadly 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols, had hid money and gold bullion in the Philippines, Sen. Robert Barbers said.

Lana Padilla, Nichols’ former Filipina wife, told an Oklahoma district court that her former husband had hid thousands of dollars in cash and gold bullion in the Philippines months before the attack.

She was surprised to discover that Nichols, 48, had amassed cash and supplies. "I thought he was broke," she said.

Barbers said the Philippine embassy should look into it. "This is a very serious and risky allegation which the officials of the Philippine embassy in the US should monitor and dig deeper into the veracity of the testimony of (Nichols’ ex-wife)," he said in a statement.

Prosecutors alleged Nichols participated in a series of robberies and thefts to raise money to carry out the bombing.

Details about the stolen money and supplies came out previously at other court proceedings in the case.

The testimony came at a preliminary hearing to determine whether there was enough evidence to try Nichols on 160 state murder charges that could bring the death penalty. Nichols is already serving a life sentence on federal charges in the April 19, 1995, bombing.

Prosecutors allege Nichols and Timothy McVeigh worked together to prepare a 4,000-pound (1,800-kilogram) fuel-and-fertilizer truck bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Nichols was at home in Herington, Kansas, the day the bomb exploded.

But prosecutors accused him of helping McVeigh deliver a getaway car to Oklahoma City and of working with McVeigh to pack the bomb inside a Ryder truck the day before.

McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges. He was executed in June 2001.

Nichols was previously convicted on federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges for the deaths of eight law enforcement officers in the bombing, which killed 168 people.

The state charges involve victims who were not part of Nichols’ federal trial.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty and say a state conviction is needed to eliminate any possibility that he could get the federal conviction overturned on appeal and gain his freedom.

Padilla testified that when he went on a trip to the Philippines in late 1994, she discovered he had left $20,000 in $100 bills in a bag behind a drawer in her house.

He also left a key to a storage facility where she found gold bullion, camping gear, a ski mask, makeup and a wig, among other things.

District Judge Allen McCall warned Padilla to tell the truth after she denied or said she couldn’t recall earlier statements she made to the FBI.

One of those statements described Nichols as an anti-government, secretive survivalist.

"It’s my opinion that you are being evasive and not truthful with your answers," the judge told her.

She hugged Nichols as people were leaving the courtroom for a lunch break.

In other testimony, an aide to a US senator said Nichols called the lawmaker’s office two days before the Oklahoma City bombing to complain about the fiery end to the Branch Davidian siege in Texas.

"He was very stern and told us about his thinking on the matter," said Lee Ellen Alexander, who worked for then-Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker of Kansas.

The existence of the call to the senator’s office has never before been made public.

Alexander said Nichols also complained about gun laws and former Attorney General Janet Reno.

The former aide said she heard days later that Nichols, who was living in Kansas at the time, was a suspect in the bombing, which came on the second anniversary of the fiery cult disaster at Waco, Texas, that left about 80 Branch Davidians dead.

"Oh, my God, I was literally surprised and shocked," Alexander said.

Another witness, Sheryl Pankratz, who works at the court clerk’s office in Marion, Kansas, testified that in March 1994 a man who identified himself as Terry Nichols turned in a document at the office that renounced his US citizenship.