McVeigh's Lawyer: 'Paper Hacked Defense Files'

DENVER: After enduring a weekend of potentially devastating stories about his client, Timothy McVeigh, attorney Stephen Jones came out swinging against the Dallas Morning News on Monday. He accused the paper of stealing defense notes from his computer and using them in reporting that the Oklahoma City bombing defendant had confessed to the blast. Jones asked for a federal investigation into the issue, and also said he plans to file a complaint asking the Texas Supreme Court to determine whether reporter Pete Slover, who is also a lawyer, should be disbarred. Jones also is considering seeking a 90-day cooling off delay in the trial, which was scheduled to begin on March 31. If the newspaper publishes more stories from the documents, Jones said he'll seek to move the trial out of Denver, where it was previously relocated from Oklahoma to increase the chances of finding an objective jury. "They knew or should have known that they had stolen documents," Stephen Jones said of the newspaper editors during a news conference Monday. "They knew or should have known they had no authorized release from Tim McVeigh, Judge Matsch or myself." Jones said his weekend investigation into the matter showed that Morning News lawyers obtained about 25,000 FBI memoranda and interviews with witnesses and hundreds of documents for McVeigh and co-defendant Terry Nichols by breaking into the defense's computer files. For its part, the Morning News stood by its story and maintains that it has nothing to retract. "We did not break any laws," News attorney Paul Watler said. "We have no fear of criminal repercussions."