Crime & Safety

Synagogue Bombing Trial on Hold

Suspect Ron Hirsch was ordered hospitalized in October for fourth months. The federal medical center where he will be evaluated next is backlogged until Jan. 13.

Ron Hirsch, indicted on charges that he and then fled to Ohio, remains in federal custody awaiting further psychiatric evaluations.

An earlier evaluation in October found him incompetent to stand trial, and he was ordered hospitalized for four months. At that time, the federal Bureau of Prisons was asked to prepare a report addressing whether Hirsch's competency had been restored, allowing him to stand trial.

But the federal medical center in Butner, NC, where Hirsch will be examined next, is backlogged, the U.S. Marshals Service told his defense attorney in December. Hirsch, who is being held in Oklahoma City, is now scheduled to arrive in North Carolina on Jan. 13, according to court records.

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His trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles was set to begin Aug. 30, but it was continued at the request of both federal prosecutors and Hirsch's attorney.

They sought more time for the mental evaluation, as well as time to review evidence in the case.

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Their request to postpone the trial raised the question of whether the approximately 250-pound pipe bomb Hirsch allegedly planted at the Chabad House Lubavitch of Santa Monica is actually an explosive device. Nearly all of the charges Hirsch faces center on the use of fire or explosives.

The device, "according to the government, incorporated both a typical explosive, black powder, and a chemical substance generally used in the demolition of concrete and stone, and which may not generally be thought of as an explosive, or as a constituent of a destructive device," the attorneys wrote in their request June 6.

The request for a psychiatric evaluation four days earlier is sealed.

In May, Hirsch pleaded not guilty to four charges, including attempting to damage and destroy a religious center with a fire and/or explosive device.

Shortly after 6 a.m. on April 7, a large steel pipe partially encased in concrete exploded from inside a plastic trash can on a small, overgrown walkway just outside the Chabad House at 1428 17th St. The explosion launched the steel pipe into the side of the Chabad House before it landed on the roof of a nearby home. 

A receipt with Hirsch's name for three 11-pound bags of a demolition agent from Constar in Clovis, CA, was found at the scene. Hirsch was later arrested at at a synagogue in Cleveland Heights, OH.

Investigators will use 1,163 photos, 1,526 pages of documents, and nine computer disks of video and audio files to try to link Hirsch to the explosion, which forced evacuations in a four-block radius near the Chabad House. No one was injured when the pipe bomb exploded.

The earliest a trial would begin is June 5, 2012, court records show.


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