Reposting in case it is changed or taken down.
A man suspected of planting the pipe bomb that was discovered Tuesday as part of a murder-for-hire plot linked by authorities to the former Aryan Nations lawyer is in custody.
Larry Andrew Fairfax was taken into custody Tuesday night in Coeur d’Alene and is suspected of planting the pipe bomb that was found on Cyndi Steele’s SUV earlier, according to U.S. District Court documents filed today. Fairfax allegedly had been hired by the intended victim’s husband, Sagle attorney Edgar Steele, to plant the bomb, which was discovered during an oil change.
It’s unclear whether Fairfax is a second suspected contract killer linked to the murder-for-hire plot or the same unidentified person who first tipped authorities to the scheme last week, which led to Edgar Steele’s arrest on Friday. The alleged murder plot detailed in Steele’s arrest last week had a different timeline than the one outlined by Fairfax in Tuesday’s arrest.
Fairfax reportedly is cooperating with investigators and claimed in interviews that although he had planted the bomb, he had manipulated the fuse to malfunction. The bomb reportedly was planted May 30 because Cyndi Steele was planning to drive to Oregon to visit her mother the following day, and Edgar Steele wanted it to detonate and cause a fatal crash, according to the documents.
A second pipe bomb was confiscated by police that Fairfax claimed that he was supposed to plant on Edgar Steele’s vehicle, and which Edgar Steele would be able to detonate on his own car to provide an alibi in which it would appear that he and his wife had been targeted, the documents say.
Fairfax, also from Sagle, is facing federal charges of making and possessing bombs.
Edgar Steele unsuccessfully represented the Aryan Nations, and its founder Richard Butler, in the landmark 2000 lawsuit that bankrupted the white supremacist organization. His law practice specializes in representing supremacist groups and others with what he describes as “politically incorrect” views.
