Mail Bomber Gets 2 Life Terms

ANCHORAGE- An Anchorage man convicted of masterminding a fatal mail bombing from prison was condemned yesterday to two life sentences without possibility for parole, plus 85 years, federal officials said.

Raymond Cheely, 24, of Chugiak, Alaska, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Anchorage after being convicted earlier this year in a federal trial in Tacoma on eight counts relating to the complicated 1991 mail-bomb plot. The trial was moved to Tacoma because of publicity in Alaska.

At the time of the bombing, Cheely was in prison, serving a 65-year sentence for a fatal 1990 drive-by shooting.

Also sentenced yesterday was Cheely associate Joseph Ryan, 23, also of Chugiak, convicted in the Tacoma trial of illegal possession of a bomb. Ryan was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, plus a $7,500 fine.

The bomb was in a package addressed to George Kerr, who testified against Cheely in the shooting trial.