Bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh faces a contempt hearing over his refusal to give a writing sample, and a newspaper Wednesday says his sister gave the FBI information linking him to robbery and explosives.
In refusing a grand jury request for a handwriting sample, Mc-Veigh argued that he usually prints rather than using cursive writing. Defense lawyer Stephen Jones said that giving such a writing sample would make him perform "an act that requires a thinking process," which could make him incriminate himself in violation of the Fifth Amendment."I just don't buy that argument," Chief U.S. District Judge David Russell said at a hearing Tuesday. He ordered attorneys to submit briefs in preparation for a contempt hearing Friday.
The Washington Post on Wednesday quoted sources close to the investigation as saying McVeigh's 21-year-old sister, Jennifer, has made two lengthy statements to the FBI.
In one, the community college student in upstate New York says her brother asked her to exchange two $100 bills from a bank robbery in late 1994 and exchange them for smaller denominations. That would bolster investigators' theory that McVeigh supported himself and financed the Oklahoma City bombing with robberies.
According to the Post's sources, she also told the FBI her brother told her that he narrowly avoided an automobile accident last year that could have killed him because he was carrying explosives.
Jennifer McVeigh has not been charged with any crimes. Timothy McVeigh is imprisoned in El Reno as the grand jury works toward an Aug. 11 deadline to indict him.
The grand jury requested that McVeigh write in cursive, jotting three or four sentences of prose, filling out a handwriting specimen form that had individual letters, and copying a list of 15 names. The names were not disclosed.
The prosecution said it wanted the samples to compare with documents it has. Jones theorized that the prosecution wanted to compare samples to the rental agreement from a Junction City, Kan., truck rental business. Authorities say McVeigh rented a Ryder truck to carry the bomb that wrecked the Oklahoma City federal building on April 19, killing 168 people.