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Clemency board will reconsider freeing man who plotted bombings
ANNE BRADY
Associate Editor
Responding to pleas from the Anti-Defamation League, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and the governor's office, members of the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency agreed this week to reconsider the decision to grant early prison release to a man who once plotted to blow up black churches and Jewish organizations' facilities, including a day-care center so he could see children die.
A three-member panel of the clemency board had earlier voted to allow the release of Michael Anthony Bloom, 25, to house arrest today (Oct. 30). Instead, the board will reopen its hearing on the matter on Nov. 16, and Bloom will remain behind bars, at least in the interim.
"This was the first step. Now, on the 16th, we will be able to testify about why we don't think Bloom should be released," commented Joel Breshin, regional director of the ADL, who testified at the Oct. 28 hearing on whether to reconsider the planned release. "We are really pleased that the governor decided to intervene. Without her influence, I don't know whether we would have gotten the board to meet again."
George Weisz, executive assistant to Gov. Jane Hull, said he first learned on Oct. 22 that the panel had voted to release Bloom and that neither the county attorney's office nor any of Bloom's prospective victims had been notified. Both the county attorney's office and the ADL had filed formal requests to be notified anytime Bloom's release was being considered, but prosecutor Jim Blake said the requests apparently were accidentally archived.
"We should be bending over backwards to hear the voices of victims," commented Weisz, "not finding ways to exclude them."
Blake prosecuted Bloom twice - in 1988, when Bloom's bombing plot was uncovered, and again in 1994 when Bloom, having been released on probation, was discovered to be in possession of firearms, ammunition and Nazi paraphernalia. In 1994, Bloom was sentenced to serve 11 years; he would complete his full sentence in about six more years.
"He is a clear and present danger to society," said Blake. "If he was plotting to kill you, would you rather he was released now or in six years? I'd rather have the six years."
When Bloom was 16, he was a leader in the local skinhead movement and plotted to blow up more than 30 buildings in Maricopa County in the name of white supremacy. According to a letter from Blake to Ed Leyva, chairman of the clemency board, Bloom was expelled from Sunnyslope High School because of white- supremacist activities and decided to strike back at society by planting pipe bombs at various locations.
Bloom was sentenced in January 1990 to four years in prison and seven years' probation for misconduct involving weapons and conspiracy to commit arson. In August of 1990, the Arizona Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Bloom release on home-arrest status, but revoked the decision after guards found a poem in his cell that read in part, "White Power, I believe it still. It's running through my head; it's making me kill."
In 1993, Bloom was released on probation, but he was reincarcerated for probation violations, after his probation officer discovered rifles and ammunition at his home, together with such paraphernalia as a Nazi flag, Nazi pins and a photograph of Adolf Hitler. Bloom claimed the items were not his and that he had abandoned the white- supremacy movement.
At his recent clemency board hearing, Bloom reportedly testified that he was "sick of hating people" and that he realized that what he had done in the past was "morally wrong."
"That's just something he says," countered Blake, who does not believe that Bloom is sincere. Neither does Breshin.
"He will be a white supremacist all his life," said Breshin. "We feel there's a real danger to the Jewish community if Bloom is released, and not only to the Jews and the blacks, but to the entire community; he targeted some businesses he thought were minority-owned but weren't. There's just too much history there. Who knows what he might have done with those weapons if his probation officer hadn't caught him?"
Weisz also said Bloom has a "history of lying" about his intention to abandon the white-supremacy ideology.
"He's had three strikes already. ... Why should we believe him now?" Weisz said.
Only Bloom's wife, Darleen, testified on his behalf at the Oct. 28 hearing.
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