In an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Waagner explained that he had planned to send bomb threats to every abortion clinic in the nation. The threats would have been sent on FBI letterhead by fax and would have warned clinic personnel not to use their telephones to alert anyone, claiming that the phones would have detonated the bombs. According to Waagner, his goal was to have the faxes arrive at clinics nationwide simultaneously and cause every clinic to shut down.
Waagner, a convicted felon, escaped from a jail in Illinois last February while awaiting sentencing on stolen weapon charges. U.S. Marshals apprehended the self-proclaimed anti-abortion “warrior” last week. Waagner has admitted to sending over 500 anthrax threat letters to abortion providers and reproductive rights advocacy organizations during October and November. None of the letters tested positive for anthrax. Waagner also allegedly confessed to another anti-abortion extremist that he was conducting surveillance on 42 abortion providers whom he was going to kill. Waagner, in custody and facing up to a life sentence in prison as well as several bank robbery charges, has now told the Plain Dealer that while he thought about killing the doctors, he had eventually decided not to go through with his plan and would only threaten them instead.
