Michael Fortier
Overview
Michael Fortier is a former U.S. Army acquaintance of Timothy McVeigh who had advance knowledge of the plan to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and did not report it to authorities. Fortier was never charged as a co-conspirator in the bombing itself. He pleaded guilty to related federal offenses and testified for the prosecution against McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
This profile does not classify Michael Fortier as an extremist. ExtremismLedger includes him because of his documented, material connection to the qualifying Oklahoma City Bombing incident -- not because his own individual conduct has been shown to independently meet ExtremismLedger's inclusion criteria for right-wing extremism. See ExtremismLedger's editorial policy on the "associated participant" basis for more detail.
Advance knowledge and conduct
According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit's opinion in his case, "McVeigh informed Fortier of the plan to bomb the Murrah building and provided him with many details of the operation months before the bombing." The court noted that "[a]lthough Fortier refused to take part in the conspiracy and has not been charged as a co-conspirator," he sold firearms that Nichols had stolen from a gun collector and gave McVeigh $2,000 of the proceeds; the government stipulated it could not trace that money to specific bombing-related expenses.
Charges, plea, and sentence
Fortier was indicted in August 1995 alongside McVeigh and Nichols on charges related to concealing knowledge of the bombing plan and weapons offenses. He ultimately pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to four federal offenses: conspiracy to transport stolen firearms, transporting stolen firearms, making a false statement to the FBI, and misprision of a felony (concealing knowledge of a federal crime). He was sentenced on May 27, 1998 to 12 years in prison; his fine was later reduced on resentencing from $200,000 to $75,000. He was released from federal custody in January 2006.