New York Bombing Fugitive Arrested by FBI in Oxnard

A fugitive allegedly living under an assumed name in Oxnard was arrested by FBI agents Friday for bombings he committed in Upstate New York while he was a police officer on duty in 1978, authorities said.

Joseph Hamilton Harper, 45, had been using the alias of Donald Nagy while living in Oxnard during approximately the past year, said Gary Auer, supervisor of the Ventura office of the FBI.

Harper is a former Woodbury, N.Y., police officer who used dynamite in four separate incidents to blow up railroad tracks, a sewage treatment plant and an electric company transformer. The explosions caused $200,000 in damage, officials said.

Harper pleaded guilty to first-degree felony criminal mischief in 1979, but fled while he was free on bail awaiting sentencing scheduled for early 1980, the FBI said. Harper faced up to 25 years in prison for the charge.

Since his disappearance, Harper was charged in New York state courts with jumping bail and in federal court with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He has been featured four times on the Fox Television program “America’s Most Wanted.”

State authorities asked the FBI for help earlier this year, officials said. The FBI office in New York traced Harper to Oxnard, but authorities would not say how he was found.

Harper was living in a large house about one block from Mandalay Beach, the FBI said. He was being held in the Ventura County Jail on Friday until he is returned to New York to begin serving his prison sentence.