Man charged in Colorado NAACP bombing to change not guilty plea: documents
DENVER (Reuters) - A man accused of bombing a building that houses the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors and will change his not guilty plea, court documents showed on Thursday.
Details of the deal will not be revealed until a change of plea hearing for Thaddeus Murphy on Aug. 3, according to a notice of disposition filed last week in U.S. District Court in Denver and first reported by local media on Thursday.
No one was hurt in the Jan. 6 blast, which caused minor charring to an exterior wall, authorities said. Murphy, 44, denied targeting the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People after his arrest the following month.
Court documents showed that he told federal agents he assembled and planted the homemade bomb driven by "rage" toward his former accountant, who he said once had an office in the same building, court documents showed.
Federal agents said at the time that they were investigating whether it was a racially motivated crime.
A federal grand jury indicted Murphy in February on one count of maliciously setting off an explosive at a public building, and one count of being a felon in possession of firearms, unrelated to the bombing.
The defendant was previously sentenced to five years in state prison for a 2009 theft conviction, which led to the weapons charge, authorities have said.
(Reporting by Daniel Wallis)
