State Won't Reopen Carhart Fire Probe

April 08, 2000

State Won't Reopen Carhart Fire Probe

BY DAVID HENDEE AND JUDITH NYGREN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERs

The state will not reopen an investigation into a 1991 fire that destroyed a Bellevue abortion doctor's house, Nebraska Fire Marshal Ken Winters said Friday.

Leaders of Nebraska's anti-abortion movement asked the state this week to reopen the investigation, saying that Dr. LeRoy Carhart has slandered them by telling reporters that "anti-choice zealots" had claimed responsibility for the fire in a letter he received afterward.

"Nothing has changed from nine years ago to warrant us reopening the case," Winters said.

Carhart was interviewed at his Bellevue clinic Friday afternoon by Jack Malicky, chief of investigations for the State Fire Marshal's Office, about the existence of such a letter.

Malicky said Carhart told him that the letter was lost over the years and that his comments have been misinterpreted.

"He said the letter never said the fire was arson and he was never accusing anybody of starting the fire," Malicky said. "He said he has no letter in his possession."

Carhart, one of three doctors who performs abortions in Nebraska, was seeing patients Friday afternoon at his clinic and was not available for comment.

Carhart has been making the media circuit in recent weeks as his lawyers prepare to go before the U.S. Supreme Court later this month to oppose a state ban on a controversial abortion procedure.

During appearances and interviews, Carhart has been quoted as saying that he received an anonymous letter postmarked the day of the fire saying that the killing of 17 horses, a dog, a cat and the destruction of the house and other property were justified to make a statement against abortion.

Carhart has pointed to the Sept. 6, 1991, fire as the catalyst for continuing to devote his life to providing women the option of abortion - a decision that he said prevents the arsonist from gaining "even a minute victory."

Larry Donlan, director of Rescue the Heartland and one of four abortion opponents at a Friday morning press conference, said he had read Carhart's claims in newspapers and "smelled something rotten in Bellevue."

If there actually was such a letter, he asked, why wasn't it turned over to fire investigators? Donlan produced what he said was the full investigative report filed with the state.

Nowhere is a letter mentioned, although investigators noted that Carhart said his daughter saw a strange car leave the area of his home the day before the fire. A one-page incident report showed that investigators could not determine the cause or origin of the fire.

The abortion foes said Carhart is either lying or obstructing justice by withholding the letter from fire investigators.

Malicky said he didn't remember seeing or knowing about a letter claiming responsibility for the blaze. Malicky was called to the fire scene after the blaze to assist the Bellevue fire investigator but not until county workers had bulldozed the rubble and destroyed possible evidence.

The case was closed and left unsolved, he said, because it could not be determined if an incendiary device was used to start the fire.

Donlan said that if Carhart says the fire was the work of an arsonist, he must be prepared to produce the evidence. "Dr. Carhart, today is your day of reckoning. Shut up or put up."

Donlan and the other anti-abortion representatives asked the state to file criminal charges against Carhart if he has been withholding evidence. If evidence doesn't exist, Carhart should be held accountable for slandering abortion opponents and implying that fire investigators failed to do their job, the group wrote Wednesday in its letter to the state.

The abortion foes' letter asking the state to reopen the case didn't arrive at Winters' office until Friday afternoon. Winters said he would formally reply to the group in a letter to be mailed Monday.

Margie Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York City, which is representing Carhart in his fight against Nebraska's "partial-birth" abortion ban, said Carhart had no comment on the accusations leveled Friday by the abortion opponents.

They are "baseless," Kelly said.