White Supremacist To Plead Guilty

Wednesday, January 24th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” The white supremacist accused of killing a mail carrier and wounding five people at a Jewish community center has agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison as part of a plea agreement with the government, sources said.

Buford O. Furrow Jr., who is charged with 16 federal counts in connection with the Aug. 10, 1999, rampage across the San Fernando Valley, was scheduled to appear Wednesday morning at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Nora Manella.

There, he planned to plead guilty to all 16 counts as part of a deal sparing him the death penalty, sources speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press.

U.S. attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek confirmed that Furrow would indeed enter a guilty plea, although he declined to specify how many counts he would plead to or to discuss the deal further.

Furrow, 37, is charged with killing Filipino-American letter carrier Joseph Ileto hours after he allegedly wounded three boys, a teen-age girl and a woman at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in the San Fernando Valley.

He allegedly sprayed the community center with more than 70 rounds before fleeing to the west San Fernando Valley, where authorities say he shot Ileto nine times as the man was delivering mail.

Furrow surrendered in Las Vegas the day after the shooting.

Authorities said he told them afterward that he shot up the community center because he wanted to send a ``wake-up call to America to kill Jews.'' He allegedly shot Ileto because the man appeared to him to be Hispanic or Asian.

Furrow's plea bargain includes a mandatory life sentence without possibility of parole, the sources told The Associated Press.

``We are very relieved that we were able to persuade the government that death was not an appropriate resolution of this case,'' chief federal public defender Maria E. Stratton told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's editions.

Furrow faced state charges of murder and attempted murder, and state prosecutors had added hate-crime allegations. The federal charges overrode the Los Angeles County district attorney's plans to prosecute Furrow under state law.

Furrow has a history of hospitalizations for mental problems, and his lawyers had said they planned to make his mental condition an issue at his trial.

Furrow, of Olympia, Wash., had a long history of involvement with anti-Semitic hate groups operating in the Pacific Northwest, among them the Aryan Nations.