Lowe's bomber plead's guilty

Home Channel News, Jan 10, 2000

George Matos Rocha faces 132 years in prison, $1.25 million in fines

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- George Matos Rocha, 51, on Dec. 6 pleaded guilty to all charges against him in connection with the September bombing incidents in Lowe's stores. He faces a maximum penalty of 132 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines.

As previously reported in NHCN, Rocha was charged with planting the pipe bombs that exploded Sept. 22 at Lowe's stores in Asheboro and Salisbury, N.C., and the unexploded bomb found Sept. 28 at the Concord, N.C., Lowe's store. He was also charged for mailing threatening letters to Lowe's Wilkesboro, N.C., headquarters and for extortion.

According to authorities, all the evidence indicated that Rocha had no accomplices. Rocha entered his guilty plea during a 15-minute arraignment in Winston-Salem, N.C., last month. His attorney, public defender Greg Davis, told the Greensboro News and Record that Rocha "realized there was no way out and just wanted to get it over with." Lowe's spokesman Brian Peace said the guilty plea came as "a very pleasant surprise" to Lowe's employees, adding that the Wilkesboro, N.C.-based retailer has reclaimed the $250,000 it sent to Rocha's Latvian bank account. (Rocha had extorted that payment from Lowe's by threatening further bombing.)

According to a summary of his confession, filed at the U.S. District Court in Greensboro, Rocha made the bombs out of gunpowder; galvanized pipe, electrical tape and other materials on Sept. 21 in a shed behind his house. The next day, he carried the bombs into Lowe's stores in plastic bags and hid them in the paint departments to "cause a mess."

Rocha is scheduled for a sentencing hearing March 9, until which time he is being held without bond. The most lenient sentence will incarcerate Rocha for 37 years.