APor 05/15 0521 Pires Sentencing COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- A white supremacist-turned-g

APor 05/15 0521 Pires Sentencing


   COEUR      D'ALENE,      Idaho     (AP)     --     A     white
supremacist-turned-government informant  has  been  sentenced  to
life  in prison for murder and to 10 more years in prison for his
part in bombings last year in Coeur d'Alene.

   The sentences will run concurrently with a  different  20-year
federal  sentence  Robert  Pires  recently received for bombings,
weapons and counterfeiting charges.

   Kootenai County Prosecutor Glen  Walker  said  Pires,  22,  of
Silver  Spring,  Md.,  will  have  to  serve at least 10 years in
prison before he's eligible for parole.

   The  sentences  came  Thursday  as  part  of  a  plea  bargain
guaranteeing  Pires  government  protection,  two  days after 1st
District Judge Dar Cogswell halted sentencing on the first-degree
murder count, saying facts surrounding the case did  not  support
the charge.

   Prosecutor Phil Robinson in Bonner County, where the murder of
Kenneth   Shray   occurred   in   August,   said  he  reworked  a
factual-basis statement on  the  charge,  allowing  1st  District
Judge Dar Cogswell to go through with sentencing.

   Pires'  attorney, Kerwin Bennett, introduced evidence Thursday
claiming Pires thought members of  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ
Christian  (Aryan  Nations),  suspected that Shray, of Baltimore,
was a police information when he arrived  at  the  Aryan  Nations
compound in August.

   Bennett  said  Pires believed Aryan Nations members planned to
beat and rob Shray, but not kill him.

   That information satisfied Cogswell's  requirement  of  aiding
and abetting to go through with sentencing.

   Shray's  bullet-ridden  body was found Aug. 18 near Clark Fork
in Bonner County.

   During a trial for two white  supremacists  on  counterfeiting
charges,  Assistant  U.S.  Attorney  Earl Hicks in Spokane told a
judge that another white supremacist, David Dorr, may  have  been
the triggerman in Shray's death.

   Dorr,  and  Edward  and  Olive  Hawley  all  were charged with
counterfeiting.   Prosecutors  said  they  ran  a  counterfeiting
operation to finance a white supremacist revolution.

   The bombings in Coeur d'Alene were to act as a diversion for a
bank robbery, prosecutors said.  The robbery never occurred.

   Olive  Hawley  was  sentenced  to  four  years'  probation  on
counterfeiting charges.  Her husband, Edward,  was  sentenced  to
four years in prison, and Dorr was sentenced to six.

	Dorr and Edward Hawley still face bombing charges.
   
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