Spokane, Wash.?
? A man who admitted to planting a bomb along a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade route was sentenced Tuesday to 32 years in prison, the maximum punishment as negotiated under a plea deal that he tried to withdraw and then later denounced.
"I am not guilty of the acts that I am accused of and that I plead guilty to," Kevin Harpham said before U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush handed down the sentence. He agreed to the deal in September to avoid a possible life sentence, Harpham said.
The statement prompted the judge to impose the higher end of the possible prison sentence, which was negotiated in the plea bargain as between 27 and 32 years. "I am distressed that you appear not the least bit apologetic," Quackenbush said.
Harpham, who has extensive ties to white supremacists, blamed the judge for not giving his defense team enough time. The 37-year-old said he did not intend to injure people with the bomb he placed in downtown Spokane prior to the January parade.
Rather, he intended for the shrapnel to hit the side of a building as a show of protest against the multiculturalism celebrated by the parade, he said.
"I was making a statement that there are people out there who don't agree with these ideas," Harpham said. He likened himself to a Christian protesting gay marriage, "but a bit more dangerous or extreme."
The judge said he was perplexed because Harpham had been honorably discharged from the Army and had no criminal record. Quackenbush wondered whether a "shrill and caustic and vitriolic" culture fueled by talk media was partially to blame.
Just before Harpham was scheduled to be sentenced, his lawyer tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea by noting that a newly hired defense expert questioned whether the explosive device in question met the legal definition of a bomb.
Harpham said he intended to seek an appeal, which he has 14 days to file.
Federal prosecutors said it was important that a long sentence be imposed in the case.
"Acts of hate like this one have no place in our country in 2011," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division in Washington.
The pipe bomb was loaded with lead fishing weights coated in rat poison, which can inhibit blood clotting in wounds, officials have said. The bomb was discovered and disabled before it could explode.
The Jan. 17 parade drew a crowd of about 2,000. It was forced onto an alternative route after the bomb was found. Harpham walked in the parade and took pictures of black children and of a Jewish man who was wearing a yarmulke, prosecutors have said.
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