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Man who pleaded guilty to making bomb says he didn't aim to hurt anyone, claims environmental group pushing Hispanics off their land
A Santa Cruz man who pleaded guilty this week to making a pipe bomb that was placed in the mailbox of a Santa Fe environmental group says he did it to protest how environmentalists are pushing poor Hispanics off their land in Northern New Mexico.
In a telephone interview Friday from the Estancia jail, Raymond Kodiak Sandoval said he didn't intend to hurt anyone in March 1999 when he placed the explosive in the mailbox of Forest Guardians, a Santa Fe environmental group.
"Just purely a political reason," Sandoval said. "Nothing was made to hurt anybody. I'm not a violent person by nature. I just felt it was a message that needed to be sent. That's the only way any message is heard these days, unless you have a million bucks."
Although the bomb didn't explode, police said it was loaded with ball bearings to act as shrapnel and would have been powerful enough to kill people had it gone off.
U.S. Judge C. LeRoy Hansen on Wednesday sentenced Sandoval, 37, to seven years in prison. The sentence covers both the Forest Guardians bomb and Sandoval's admission he started the Oso Complex Fire, which burned more than 5,000 acres...