http://www.ocregister.com/news/shoot011w1.shtml
Ford stash yields explosives
INVESTIGATION: Police say containers unearthed at Biofem exec's home also stored weapons.
March 11, 2000
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By MAYRAV SAAR and HEATHER LOURIE
The Orange County Register
IRVINE — Military-type explosives that experts say could blow up a car or kill a person were discovered Friday, buried in Dr. Larry Ford's back yard inside a 5-foot-long plastic cylinder, police said.
Plastic explosives known as C-4 were identified by an X-ray machine, officials said. They were transported to the Orange County Sheriff's Department late Friday for further study after technicians examined them.
Irvine police Sgt. Jeff Noble said Ford had stored the explosives improperly, packaging the blasting caps with the plastic material. He said the blasting caps could be detonated by heat or jarring, which could set off the bigger explosion of the C4.
"It could do a lot of damage if it was detonated," Irvine Lt. Sam Allevato said. "This is what the military uses in warfare."
The discovery is the latest twist in a saga that began Feb. 28 with the ambush shooting of Biofem Pharmaceutical Chief Executive Officer James Patrick Riley and the subsequent suicide of Ford, Riley's business partner.
The situation escalated Wednesday when police evacuated 48 homes in Ford's Woodbridge neighborhood after receiving tips that biological weapons might be buried near the home.
FBI agents and police found the explosives Friday inside one of six cylinders removed from the yard of Ford's Foxboro home. The five other cylinders, which were excavated during an all-day dig, contain firearms, ammunition and other materials that may be hazardous, police said. Those containers were not opened.
C-4, produced mainly for the military, is stronger than dynamite, but is the most stable of all explosives. The quantities found in Ford's yard were two 1 1/4 pound packages.
Ford committed suicide March 2, three days after Riley was shot by a masked gunman outside the pair's Irvine Spectrum office. Dino D'Saachs, an associate of Ford's, is believed to have been the getaway driver.
D'Saachs, who is being held on charges of conspiring to commit murder, said in a jailhouse interview Friday that Ford was a caring man.
"He was brilliant," D'Saachs said. "He told me once he could never be a pediatrician because it would hurt him too much to see a child cry."
When he recovers, Riley will resume his role as company CEO. The bullet pierced his lip and came out his jaw, hitting an artery but sparing Riley's teeth.
Riley did not attend Ford's funeral Wednesday because police told him to "lay low," said Raymond Lee, a Biofem attorney.But Riley is deeply saddened by his partner's suicide, Lee said.
Ford's family knew that the doctor had stashed guns in an underground compartment in the yard. But word that he worked for a federal intelligence agency stunned them, said Bill Bollard, another of Ford's attorneys and a longtime friend.
Another of Ford's attorneys, Stephen Klarich, said Ford had worked for the U.S. government in an intelligence capacity consulting on biological matters. But he had no details as to which agency or in what capacity.
Bollard said he believed Ford took his life to protect his family from media and police attention.
"I think he perceived the world as a cruel place. He viewed how people are tried in the press, and it was more than he wanted his family to go through," Bollard said. "I don't understand it. All I know is that I miss him."
Another of Ford's attorneys, H. Bryan Card, said police told him and Ford's wife, Diane, that Ford knew how to make biological weapons.
"The police said he had the knowledge and capability to come up with ... germ warfare. ... The police got a tip that he had worked for the CIA doing biological warfare," Card contended.
Police did not deny the comments, but doubted Card had inside information.
Card said police told him that tension over the direction of the business had been mounting between Riley and Ford. "But (the tension) was not about money," he said.
Ford invented Biofem's Inner Confidence, a vaginal suppository designed to help block the transmission of HIV, but the product has not gone through clinical trials.
Though Ford had wanted to conduct clinical trials in Europe and South Africa, Riley insisted the research be done in the United States. This may have been a point of contention between the two, Card said.
In other developments, Vicky Maharaj, the press secretary for the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C., said his government is "investigating reports that Dr. Ford was involved on a consultancy basis in the biological and chemical (weapons) program with the former South African Defense Force."
