TWO INDIVIDUALS PLEAD GUILTY TO MULTIPLE CONSPIRACY TO MURDER CHARGES AND CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT BANK FRAUD

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Two defendants involved in a plot to kill federal officials and a witness who was scheduled to testify against them, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit murder charges, the Justice Department announced.

Arnold Wesley Flowers and Sompong Khamsomphou, defendants in a pending conspiracy to commit bank fraud trial, pleaded guilty today in the U.S. District Court of Alaska to two counts of conspiracy to murder a federal witness and conspiracy to murder federal employees or officials.

The defendants were each charged in a superceding indictment in March of 2002 that alleged a plot to kill an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA), a United States District Court Judge and a government witness in the underlying bank fraud case. As part of the plea agreement, the defendants also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with the underlying fraud matter.

The superceding indictment alleged that on or about February 22, 2002, Flowers provided a handwritten note of four intended victims to an intermediary who was to make contact with a hit man. According to the indictment, the intermediary and Khamsomphou then called a person they believed was a contract killer to arrange for the murder of a government witness. The indictment alleged that Khamsomphou traveled to a hotel to meet with the contract killer and provided a down payment on four murder contracts.

The indictment also alleged that the two defendants conspired to arrange the killings of both the prosecuting attorney and presiding judge in U.S. v. Flowers and Khamsomphou.

The defendants will be sentenced in early September in the federal District Court of Alaska.

The investigation leading to the arrest was the result of the cooperative efforts of the United States Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the United States Marshals Service.

The case was prosecuted by the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice. The United States Attorney's Office in Alaska recused itself from the matter since it involved one of its employees as a victim and a federal judge in the district.

###

02-345