Domestic terror bomber returning to Portland

PORTLAND – Raymond Luc Levasseur, who has served 18 years in prison for a series of terror bombings during the early 1980s, will be released to a halfway house in Portland this week, the city’s police chief announced Thursday.

Chief Michael Chitwood expressed outrage that Levasseur, 57, was getting out of federal prison after serving less than half of his 45-year sentence but said there is nothing he can do about it other than warn residents that “a bad guy” will be in their midst.

“The thing that I’m outraged about is why this guy, who is a domestic terrorist, is being released,” Chitwood said, vowing that officers will maintain a close watch on him.

Levasseur, once listed among the FBI’s Most Wanted, was a member of a group of radicals who were linked to the bombings of 19 buildings and 10 bank robberies. The targeted buildings included Central Maine Power headquarters in Augusta and the Suffolk County Courthouse in Boston, where 22 people were injured in the blast.

Levasseur, a Sanford native and Vietnam veteran, was arrested in Ohio in 1984, three years after fellow radical Thomas Manning shot and killed a New Jersey state trooper. Levasseur and other members of the Ohio Seven were tried and convicted on bombing charges in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1986.

Chitwood said Levasseur, who will be released today in Atlanta, expressed a preference to return to Maine. He is scheduled to remain at the halfway house on Grant Street until November, when he will be free to live wherever he chooses, the chief said.

In addition to the bombings that took place between 1982 and 1984, Levasseur was connected with bank robberies in Augusta and Westbrook in 1975. Levasseur was never tried in connection with those crimes.

Levasseur was arrested in Ohio on Nov. 4, 1984 and charged with being a fugitive from justice since 1975. Agents with the FBI claimed they found documents and devices at Levasseur’s farmhouse hideout that linked him to the United Freedom Front, the group of radicals tied to the bombings.