ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, February 12, 1997           TAG: 9702120099
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: MANASSAS
SOURCE: Associated Press

JURY FINDS EX-FBI AGENT GUILTY IN STRANGE PLOT AGAINST HIS WIFE PUNISHMENT FOR 9 FELONIES FIXED AT 61 YEARS

Former FBI agent Eugene Bennett was convicted Tuesday of attempted murder, abduction and seven other felonies in a bizarre plot to kill his wife.

The jury found that Bennett tried to kill Marguerite Bennett by abducting her minister and threatening to blow him up if he did not lure her into an ambush at her church in Manassas.

Bennett stood impassively while the jury read all nine guilty verdicts, ending a two-week trial in which the former undercover agent claimed he was tormented by his wife's lesbian affair and a malevolent alter ego named Ed.

The jury set the penalty at 61 years in prison. Circuit Judge Richard Potter set May 15 for sentencing.

The jury of eight women and four men rejected Bennett's insanity defense. During the trial, defense lawyers argued that Bennett had been losing his grasp on sanity for years when his wife's affair with best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell pushed him over the edge.

Marguerite Bennett testified that she had two brief encounters with Cornwell in 1992. She said she was relieved by the verdict.

``I've got to move on with my life. I do feel there is a future now,'' she said.

Prosecutors noted that Bennett had been trained to endure stress as an undercover FBI agent and a SWAT team member before that. They portrayed him as a manipulator who faked psychosis only when his attempt to ambush his wife June 23 went awry.

``This is someone who is no different from the criminals he investigated, except that he carried a badge for a while,'' said assistant Commonwealth's Attorney James Willett.

Bennett's attorney, Reid Weingarten, said an appeal was likely.

``I can't say I'm completely surprised,'' Weingarten said. ``There was a lot of evidence and most of it was bizarre.''

Bennett lured the Rev. Edwin Clever to the Prince of Peace United Methodist Church, tied him up and wrapped him in what he said was plastic explosives. He told Clever he would detonate the explosives if Clever did not call Marguerite Bennett to the church.

Marguerite Bennett, also a former FBI agent, said she took a gun and pepper spray to the church because she was suspicious of Clever's call. She said Bennett lunged at her in the church, and she doused him with the spray and took cover behind a desk. Bennett fled after she shot at him, but no one was injured. The explosives on Clever turned out to be Play-Doh.

Bennett locked himself in his house, dialed 911 and began a rambling, sometimes incoherent three-hour dialogue with emergency dispatchers and hostage negotiators. During the conversation, he said an evil presence named Ed was trying to control him. When he finally surrendered, he told police he had locked Ed in the garage.

After the arrest, police found Bennett had scattered bombs and bomb components at the church and in several other places around northern Virginia. One pipe bomb was placed in a locker at the community college where Marguerite Bennett is a security guard.

Among the charges on which Bennett was convicted are possession of explosives with the intent to make a bomb, threatening to damage a church by bombing and possession of explosives.

LENGTH: Medium:   68 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Eugene Bennett talks with his attorney Tuesday 
          before his conviction for attempted murder, abduction and seven 
          other felonies.