SALT LAKE CITY — A federal judge has halted a case involving evidence from the Oklahoma City bombing while he appoints someone to investigate whether the FBI threatened a witness into not testifying.
In an order issued last month, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups appointed a “special master” to oversee the investigation into the claims that an FBI agent instructed a witness in the case not to appear in court in Jesse Trentadue’s lawsuit against the agency over documents and evidence from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
In his order, Waddoups also told the FBI to produce an unredacted report into the witness tampering claims. U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Pead will oversee the witness tampering investigation.
Read the judge’s order here:
Trentadue is suing the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act for evidence and documents from the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168. Trentadue claims his brother, Kenneth, was killed while in custody after being mistaken for a bombing co-conspirator. The FBI has denied that.
Trentadue has claimed that evidence would reveal an undercover agent knew of the bombing plot by Timothy McVeigh and others, and was there as the Ryder truck was parked in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.
