Fla. Bombing Trial Changes Venue - Brief Article

Black Issues in Higher Education, June 22, 2000

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A federal judge has moved the trial of a White man accused of setting off two pipe bombs at predominantly Black Florida A&M University to Pensacola due to pretrial publicity in the case.

Besides the bombing charges, Lawrence Lombardi, 42, is charged with committing a hate crime for allegedly setting off the bombs at the university's Tallahassee cam pus (see Black Issues, October 28, 1999). He also is charged with two counts of possession of a bomb.

Lombardi worked for a while stocking vending machines on the university's campus and elsewhere around Tallahassee for a local distributing company.

During a court hearing earlier this month, Hinkle ruled against Lombardi's request to move the trial out of North Florida. He decided instead on Pensacola, located about 190 miles west of Tallahassee, but still within the same federal judicial district.

Neither blast did much damage and no one was injured, but last year's explosions -- and the racist threats that followed each -- set the entire campus on edge.

The first blast went off Aug. 31 in a restroom at an administration building at Florida's only historically Black public university. The second went off Sept. 22 in a classroom building restroom.

Both incidents were accompanied by racist phone calls to a local television station -- one call warned that the two explosions were just the beginning, further spreading fear among the 12,000-student campus.

If convicted on all charges, Lombardi could face up to life in prison and fines as high as $250,000.