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[Contact: barinews ^at^ judibari ^dot^ org]

Mendocino Sheriffs Investigating New DNA Evidence in Bari
Bombing Case

Press Conference: Tuesday, 1:00 PM, Sept. 18, Oakland Federal
Building, 1301 Clay Street

Civil Rights Trial Against FBI & OPD Postponed to April 8, 2002

Documents are available from:
http://www.judibari.org/

DNA expert's report:
http://www.judibari.org/BlakeDNA.pdf

Letters and envelopes facsimile images:
http://www.judibari.org/argus_threat_avenger_ltrs.pdf

DNA evidence withheld for years by the FBI which provides
valuable clues as to who bombed Earth First! organizers Judi
Bari and Darryl Cherney in 1990 is being released at a Sept. 18
press conference following the testing for genetic material
found on envelopes of three key documents. The Bari-Cherney
legal team has also announced that their civil rights lawsuit
against the FBI and Oakland Police has been delayed until April
8, 2002 due to the tragic attacks on New York and Washington.

Bari and Cherney's attorneys, including William Simpich,
retained Forensic Science Associates of Richmond, CA to
test "the big three" documents relating to the May 24, 1990
car-bombing of Bari and Cherney. The FBI and OPD had blamed
the victims of the bombing rather than search for the
perpetrator(s).  Bari and Cherney were on their way to perform
at UC Santa Cruz as part of an ongoing Redwood Summer roadshow,
designed to attract college students to participate in
summer-long protests calling for sustainable logging and a
timber worker-environmentalist alliance.  Bari and Cherney
survived the bombing, though Bari was critically injured and
later died of cancer in 1997.

The documents submitted to Forensic Sciences include the
following:

1. The envelope sent by "Argus," an informant to the Ukiah
Police who falsely claimed Earth First! had begun automatic
weapons training and offered to set up Bari for a marijuana
arrest.  Also included with the letter was a joke photograph
of Bari holding an uzi, which had been taken for a spoof music
album cover and never used.  The letter was sent 6 weeks after
the photo was taken.

2. The envelope which contained the first death threat that Bari
received, stating "judi bari get out and go back where you come
from/we know everything/you won't get a second warning."  The
envelope of this and the Argus letter matched precisely both in
typeface, typing style and postmark, which led the Bari/Cherney
investigation to conclude that whomever had access to the
photograph and information contained in the "Argus Letter" also
sent this April 10, 1990 death threat.

3. The Lord's Avenger Letter which took credit for the Bari
bombing and described both the bomb in Bari's car and a second
bomb which failed to fully explode at a Louisiana Pacific
sawmill in Cloverdale, California. The letter is a
pseudo-Christian rant, blasting Bari for her alliance-building
with timber workers and her defense of a "baby-killing clinic."

4. Envelopes believed to contain the DNA of someone who had
access to the "Uzi Photo" of Bari.

The results were conclusive enough to convince the Mendocino
County Sheriffs, who had direct access to the "Argus Letter" and
serve the county where Bari lived and received the threats in,
to open a preliminary investigation.  The DNA results are as
follows:

* The "Argus Letter" and "You won't get a second warning"
envelopes and stamps were 100% licked by the same male
individual.

* That individual bore an highly unusual DNA combination that
offered the strong possibility that he is related to a man that
activists and news media had presented to the FBI as a suspect.

* The "Lord's Avenger" envelope was sealed by an unidentified
woman, even though the content of the letter comes
unquestionably from an male persona.

A May 31, 1990 FBI document shows that they had recommended DNA
testing and comparison of fingerprints found on key evidence to
assist with the case. The FBI pursued neither of these leads,
which could have exonerated Bari and Cherney of the false
charges alleged against them. The FBI even claimed,
astoundingly, that they did not have Bari and Cherney's
fingerprints, even though both had been arrested and
fingerprinted. The Bari-Cherney legal team contends that it has
been advised that the technology at the time was developed
sufficiently to have ruled out the two and led authorities to
another suspect.  The woman who sealed the letter could not have
been Bari, because information contained within the letter was
only available after the bombing, and Bari was under arrest and
under 24-hour surveillance during the time in question.

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